Ancient technology is more fascinating to me than 21st century technology. Despite spending most of my working life plugged in, there was always something missing. Maybe it’s the time spent outdoors, maybe it’s the spark of creative play ignited, maybe I just like getting mucky. Ancient technology is all of these things and more.
It’s pretty easy in many areas of the UK to find a decent bit of clay to slop in a bucket and take home to process. If you’re very lucky, you can dig and shape the clay straight away.
All you need to do now is dry and fire your pot.
Making Primitive Kilns
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I’m not going to go into the ins and outs and whys and wherefores too much. I recommend you get yourself down to the woods and try out the course. But if you did want to have a go yourself* this is a simple guide from which to start experimenting.
1. Warm the clay slowly to minimise thermal shock and breakage. Keep turning pots to maintain an even temperature.
2. Split ash logs to necessary size.
3. As clay warms, move pots to centre of fire on top of split ash logs. Begin with bottom layer of split ash for kiln wall.
4. Spread embers around the outside of the kiln and add next level of split ash wall. Keep turning pots.
5. Keep feeding embers with small shavings to maintain heat and add next level of split ash.
6. Place smaller ash sticks as a roof over the pots.
7. Build a pyramid around the kiln walls to create the oven
8. Keep feeding the fire until pots glow bright red
Leave to “cook” for about four hours or so and cool pot slowly. If you’re lucky and the fire gods are on your side it won’t go pop (or later bam), sounds you do not want to hear when firing primitive pottery.
I’ve written a bit more about my experience of Primitive Pottery.
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*At your own risk. I recommend you try Guy Mallinson’s Primitive Pottery course before going it alone unless you have experience of managing an open fire.
Awesome! My little sister makes her own pottery, I’ll pass this primitive kiln advice along.
Hey Addy
Nice to see you over here 🙂
Let your sister know – as she’s building the kiln, keep the flames away from the pots for as long as possible before putting the “roof” on top.
Would love to hear about how she gets on.
Good to be here 🙂
[…] bowdrill and will teach you how to also. If you ask really nicely, she might even teach you how to make your own clay pots (which you will need) or look at pictures of cute squirrels (’cause everybody needs a little […]
FAB photos ! Hey these pinchpots look just like mine, fired in a small pot bellied stove. They are great fun to do and can be made with Raku clay which fires at a lower heat, if you don’t want to dig your own. Any chance you could show a session on glazing them?
Thanks Simon.
We glazed the pots before this series of images using the most primitive form of glazing – a small, smooth, round stone. After drying but before firing we carefully rubbed the whole surface area with very smooth pebbles. The more time and care taken over this part of the job, the shinier the pot after firing. This form of glazing also helps with waterproof-ability (the proof was in the cider tasting after the fired pots had cooled). I don’t have any pictures of the process but I think you get the idea that it’s quite simple. Hope that helps.
Can I have the receipe to make the pots please
There’s not really much of a recipe. The clay was dug out of the pond, processed and mixed with some ground shells for temper. Bit of slip was used as necessary when shaping the pots.
Processing the clay is the biggest part of the job. There are more pictures and a bit more of the tale on the Primitive Pottery post.
[…] I dont think I agree with this in a SHTF situation.. we have made LOTs of plastic.. there will always be pop bottles.. If your are concerned about containers in general. Making Pottery may be a skill worth learning. You can build a nice kiln for cheap! . […]
Hi, really like your kiln idea. Can it be used to calcinate metals? I am looking to build one which can do so but using wood instead of gas and electric. Any help or pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Jonny
Hi Jonny
I was told the temperature was around 1000C in the kiln. But I reckon you’d only be able to do small amounts and it’d probably take a lot longer than firing the pots. It’d take some experimentation and keeping a close eye on the fire to keep the temperature up.
I imagine the earliest metalworkers/alchemists could have used such a set up.
If you do it I’d love to hear about it.
Hi Karen,
this is a post I hadn’t seen before. I think a lot of people who are interested in traditional skills are somewhat scared of pottery. But this blog shows a really straightforward technique for getting good results. Thanks for sharing.
All the best,
Paul
Hi Paul – thanks for commenting. It was an enjoyable couple of days and fascinating seeing the process unfold from pond to pot.
How cool is this! I’m interested in traditional firing methods and just getting into ceramics. Would a wood BBQ serve as a fire pit?
I imagine so if you can get it hot enough. We were using a large metal bowl as the fire pit. I suppose the size of it gave us plenty of room to move things around between the warming process and the actual firing. And the flat base made it easier to build the “walls” of the kiln. Good luck with giving it a go!
[…] 4. Make a primitive kiln. This project uses a carefully-supervised open fire and split ash to fire pots. […]
Do you keep “feeding the fire” after the pots turn red?
We didn’t. There was enough heat to fire the pots and allow them to cool down gradually as the embers burnt.
I’ve built various primitive and not so primitive kilns while I study ancient art technologies. This summer I am building a Greek style kiln to join my noborigama, “woodchuck” kiln and my computer controlled Skutt kiln. This is nice… Don’t forget to check for local lumber mills for scrap fuel… also companies exist which break apart palettes and allows you to load up truckloads for bonfires and kilns… this latter wood is usually hardwoods, cut very thin, and burns super fast and hot. I’m 67 yrs old and have been cooking mud for over 40 years now…
Great idea about sourcing and using waste wood for the kilns. Good luck with the Greek kiln this summer.