Difficult Birth

You have no idea the extreme trauma these critters suffered just to be born. Their journies into creation were almost destroyed by my Paragon kiln.

Paragon kilns are an abomination straight out of Hades.

For nearly two years, the Paragon kiln didn't even pretend to function properly. Then, for one month exactly, it decided to work correctly. After successful firings 3 days per week, for a month, i decided to trust it with this piece.

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A sweet little fello who i didn't want to consign to "chance".

Because there was room in the kiln for one more piece, added this cup to the load.

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Up at 3am to start the kiln as usual.

It "finished" the program 45-minutes early.

When removed from the kiln the next morning, the pieces were "disasters" of unmelted, underfired glaze. I just about sat down and cried.

ok. so we re-fire, right?

Up the next morning at 3am to start the kiln.

It wouldn't even pretend to start.

Called Susan at Paragon. Now Susan is the dearest, sweetest person in the world, who genuinely cares about people. She diagnosed the problem as a mal-functioning thermocouple and put one in the mail that day.

Received it. Installed it. And Tuesday

Yep! You guessed it ........

Was up at 3am to start the kiln.

Seems like we were right back to square one.

Fought for 17-19 hours to complete a 10-hour firing, fighting with a malfunctioning kiln.

Have a feeling the thermocouple doesn't know how to talk to the control panel. But that is just a hunch.

Like i said in the beginning: these critters suffered extreme trauma whilst coming thru the crucible into existence. I wonder if future generations will fully appreciate their journey?

Chae