What, with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile. Retires.

I just took this out of the kiln last week, and the kiln itself takes another day or two to cool down, but raku is really fast.

You do it outside, and you take the kiln up to temperature.

In the 1950s they tried their best to muffle this sound with mercury switches and silent knob controls.

I don't need firewood. I have this big order to fill and have to build my pottery kiln.

So you start with the bagasse, and then you take a very simple kiln that you can make out of a waste fifty five gallon oil drum.

After some time, after setting it on fire, you seal it to restrict the oxygen that goes into the kiln, and then you end up with this carbonized material here.

Pharaoh said O Chiefs! no god do I know for you but myself therefore, O Haman! light me a (kiln to bake bricks) out of clay, and build me a lofty palace, that I may mount up to the god of Moses but as far as I am concerned, I think (Moses) is a liar!

In 15 minutes, it goes to 1,500 degrees, and as soon as you see that the glaze has melted inside, you can see that faint sheen, you turn the kiln off, and you reach in with these long metal tongs, you grab the pot, and in Japan, this red hot pot would be immediately immersed in a solution of green tea, and you can imagine what that steam would smell like.