# Pit Firing Pottery



## chamoisee

Have any of you tried pit firing? I don't have affordable access to a kiln so was thinking of trying this. The pottery would not be for food use, it would be to sell... mostly decorative work although it could be used for applications which wouldn't involve heat or liquids. The problem I am looking at now and have been unable to find an answer to is that all the info I can find recommends bisque firing the greenware before pit firing it. Well, I don't have a kiln, so I cannot bisque fire it before pit firing it. Is it possible to gently, slowly bisque fire the greenware in the pit before doing a hotter, longer firing?


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## unioncreek

I make pots, but use a kiln. Have you done a Google search? There is also firing in a garbage can filled with sawdust. When you fire like this your pots don't need to be bisque fired. I'll see if I can find some information for you.

Here's some sites I found:
http://www.robertcomptonpottery.com/Method of-Pit-Firing-Pottery.htm
http://www.ceramicstoday.com/howto/htpitfire.htm
http://www.alexmandli.com/techniques/pit-firing.html
http://mudslingerspottery.biz/Pit/pages/pitfirestory.htm

Bob


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## chamoisee

Thank you! I had seen the first two links but not the others. They all recommend bisque firing the greenware first.... Maybe the pots could be bisque fired in a single layer of sawdust (pots in a single layer rather than piled on top of one another, I mean) and that woudl generate enough heat to bisque them? IIRC they only need to go up to 1000 to 1500 degrees F to bisque.... and then I could use oxides, etc and run them through a slightly more rigorous and longer pit firing with wood, manure, etc....hmmmm. The clay I have right now is stoneware, hundreds of pounds of it, which is usually fired to cone 10, so that doesn't helps matters. If I could afford it, it would be better to buy new, low fire clay, but this stuff was free and is what I have.


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## unioncreek

I have heard of people just pit firing a single time. I do some single firing in my kiln with cone six clays. I doesn't hurt to try it and see how a single firing with oxides and the cone 10 clay would work.

Bob


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## nightfire

Pit firing can be both fun and frustrating at the same time. I have tried it a few times with a friend. We bisque fired our stuff, though I know that you can fire it without bisque firing it. Try your first few firings with stuff you don't mind breaking/cracking/melting/blowing up until you have it figured out! 

Here's a link to a site that might have some info your looking for:
clayart - discussions by subject

and a quick search brought up this one thread:
clayart - thread 'pit fire or raku greenware?'

It also might be worth seeing if your local library has any books on pit firing. The local library here is part of a larger group of libraries that will share their books if someone is looking for one that's not available here. I was able to get a hard-to-find-out-of-print pottery book this way! :heh:


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## troy n sarah tx

I've done the garbage can firing in a college art class and it was super fun. We didn't bisque fire ours before hand, just let the dry for several weeks before firing.

Sarah


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## chamoisee

A friend is going to give me a bunch of fire brick!! I can make my own wood fired kiln! I'm so happy! :-D


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## redwall

pit firing is fun. if a bit random. of course i made the kids dig there own clay out of the river so quality was not good to start with


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## nightfire

That is awesome! A wood kiln is great and will open up more opportunities for things you can make to sell. Experiment with it to get all the bugs worked out. I love the ash glaze you get on stuff from wood firing. Be sure to give us an update as to how it's working out for you.


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## Graceless

Wonder if a Cob oven would work.............
It's cheap/free just a lot of labor... and can be used for cooking...I understand as long as there is a fire in there it can stay go up to 900 deg.. What is the temp for firing pottery?


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## nightfire

900 degrees F wouldn't be hot enough to properly bisque clay. The lowest temp to bisque fire is cone 08, which is 1735 degrees F. The final firing to make the clay turn into pottery, for a cone 10 clay body is 2300 degrees F. If she had a mid fire range stoneware, the temp would have to reach at least 2160 degrees F. 

That probably wasn't really exciting to read lol, but to say the least, a cob oven won't get hot enough at 900 degrees F. Some of the different types of wood fired kilns actually need to be fired for a couple days to reach the proper temperatures. The results are usually well worth it if the pottery doesn't break.


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