FLAIL
I went to the fantastic senior cello recital of one of my friends, and during the reception I received a call from one of the ceramics professors. She sounded confused, wondering why a bunch of my hammers were on the ware shelves to go into the cone 10 kiln (very high-fire). I didn't have any my hammers glazed for that kind of kiln - I just did cone 04 and 6 glazes, so I was also perplexed and decided to stop by on the way home to check it out.
SO...
Remember the cone 6 kiln that I was waiting to start until that girl glazed her cups? Someone had UNLOADED IT. It hadn't even been fired yet, and I had the kiln signed out until Sunday, so there should have been no reason to unload it. They got their mucky fingerprints all over the unfired work and some of my stilts were missing. This completely breaks all kiln courtesy rules. The only thing I can be grateful for is that whoever unloaded my work didn't start their own firing in my place.
Now, the girl with the cups that were supposed to go into the kiln? She knew I did hammers and tools and things, so she saw the only other kiln with hammers in it and put her cups in there and pressed "Start." That started the firing sequence, but this kiln was full of work that was already finished. I walked into the kiln room and saw that it was at 800 degrees, having already been fired, and I nearly flipped because I thought that it had gone to a cone 6 temperature, which would have melted these hammers' lower temp glaze right off, as well as vaporizing the decals.
Fortunately the kiln was still programmed with the cone 016 decal temperature, so they weren't destroyed.
The most frustrating part was that I had to load that kiln again, with fewer stilts. Not what I wanted to spend my night doing.
I tell you, when I walked into that kiln room and saw my decal kiln at 800 degrees, my cone 6 kiln empty and my work sitting on the shelves unfired, I wanted to scream (and I did a little bit) because I thought that everything was up in smoke and I would be even more behind schedule. I still don't have the lusters yet, but hopefully my main prof. will check his email soon and get back to me about borrowing those...
SO...
Remember the cone 6 kiln that I was waiting to start until that girl glazed her cups? Someone had UNLOADED IT. It hadn't even been fired yet, and I had the kiln signed out until Sunday, so there should have been no reason to unload it. They got their mucky fingerprints all over the unfired work and some of my stilts were missing. This completely breaks all kiln courtesy rules. The only thing I can be grateful for is that whoever unloaded my work didn't start their own firing in my place.
Now, the girl with the cups that were supposed to go into the kiln? She knew I did hammers and tools and things, so she saw the only other kiln with hammers in it and put her cups in there and pressed "Start." That started the firing sequence, but this kiln was full of work that was already finished. I walked into the kiln room and saw that it was at 800 degrees, having already been fired, and I nearly flipped because I thought that it had gone to a cone 6 temperature, which would have melted these hammers' lower temp glaze right off, as well as vaporizing the decals.
Fortunately the kiln was still programmed with the cone 016 decal temperature, so they weren't destroyed.
The most frustrating part was that I had to load that kiln again, with fewer stilts. Not what I wanted to spend my night doing.
I tell you, when I walked into that kiln room and saw my decal kiln at 800 degrees, my cone 6 kiln empty and my work sitting on the shelves unfired, I wanted to scream (and I did a little bit) because I thought that everything was up in smoke and I would be even more behind schedule. I still don't have the lusters yet, but hopefully my main prof. will check his email soon and get back to me about borrowing those...