In July of 2010, I decided to build a chamber onto my tube kiln. It had been a couple years of struggling with firings and it became evident that it was time to move on.

The first move was to tear down the back half of the tube. This work started near the end of August.  I had a big home show at the end of October, so that put me on  a definite deadline! The chamber that I wanted to rebuild had some definite requirements. One, it had to be large enough ( abt. 6 ft. tall ) so that I could stand to load in the pots. Second, because it was a second chamber, I wanted to be able to fire it separately. That meant designing two internal fireboxes; at the back of the tube and another inside the catenary chamber. While the exact details are particular to my kiln, the ideas were borrowed from several other kilns I had seen or read about. I borrowed an arch form from a friend. This would be the basis for my chamber.

The work was done in time and the kiln fired. As with most first firings, it was not a good firing. I was firing my old kiln, not the new chamber. Subsequent firings have gotten better and better. Because the new chambers fires quite differently ( lots of flame but not as much direct ash deposits except for the front face ) , it has forced my work to change as well and given me a chance to explore some new areas of interest.