Oh, Firefly…

Oh, Firefly, you keep me on my toes! This summer has been absolutely wild – in the best way possible! I've had over 100 firings in my trusty kiln, Firefly, and honestly, the sheer volume has been amazing. I even changed out some elements recently because they were giving me grief, and I've been diligently working to dial Firefly in, as it was running a little hot and making one of my clays bubble. Most pieces have been fine since I’ve been firing with my other, more forgiving clay.

But then... the plot thickened. I was on a really tight schedule, and I was SO excited to finally be firing the very first round of vending machine pieces since they sold out (!!!). The article had just come out, and I had two shows coming up – one Thursday, one Sunday. So, imagine my surprise, after getting literally hundreds of little pieces ready for this critical firing, I put them in the kiln, and just before it was supposed to reach temperature and shut off, Firefly threw an error code. 😩

An error code means something went wrong with the firing. I rushed down to check on it, half expecting to smell something burning, but thankfully, nothing. It just... failed. Since you never truly know the internal temperature without cones, I knew I'd have to wait for it to cool to see what happened.

Once Firefly was cool enough to open, I saw that everything was grossly underfired. I didn't even have cones low enough to capture how bad it was, but that’s okay, because you usually don't put those super low ones in since kilns are usually fairly accurate. I dove into the manual about the error code, and even called the power company to see if there'd been a dip in power – apparently, that can sometimes cause these issues.

The real kicker? When I took the electrical box off Firefly, I found that the top two wires were disconnected from the heating elements. All I can think is that when I reconnected them after changing the elements, they just weren't crimped down enough. 🤦‍♀️

So, new wire ordered, and I should be able to fix Firefly soon. But, I have to admit, this makes me very uneasy. It's really disrupting my meticulously planned firing schedule, and as much as I adore making, I do have a yearly calendar I try to stick to, and I'm definitely getting behind.

It’s just another one of those moments where I have to remember that I'm the one setting this schedule, right? And while I'm a hard worker and absolutely love a good plan, sometimes, I guess I just need to learn to go with the flow. Deep breaths! More updates soon!

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