Wood fired kiln

[christopher]

The title of the "iron stove" thread got me thinking...if you burned wood charcoal, and hooked up the power outputs on your digital controller to a bellows or a fan that would blow on the charcoal to bring up the temp... It's a little bit too young and hipster for me, but it could work.
Dang, looking back at that, maybe it should be in the "safety break room."

[Joe Userton]

You can run a kiln on a variety of non electrical fuels, natural gas or propane probably being the most common.

There is one extra wrench in the works to account for though, and that's where things get tricky. An electric kiln provides a fairly neutral environment. A classic wood or charcoal fired kiln tends to be reducing, and a fan driven version tends to be oxidizing.

Depending on the glass you are working with and the effects you are trying to achieve, this may not be an issue, but I suspect many colors wouldn't like it. It's probably not going to be possible to tightly regulate both the temperature and the atmospheric chemistry inside the kiln at once with that kind of fuel, but maybe it's just difficult rather than impossible.

[skip]

you'll reduce the shit out of all your color.

[skip]

ha!! I didnt even see Joe's reply but he explained it correctly. I just did the shorter version