Ready for Lift-Off

Enlarged airholes in lid
Batt-wash on floor,protective shelf over mouse-hole grid
Bricking up the door
Stoke-door plugs

A busy,hard and sweaty day's work with Sydney yesterday; we cut and stacked a pile of wood,cleaned up bricks and built the side/loading door,sliced soft-brick and constructed sealing plugs for the smaller stoking doors,enlarged the primary air-holes in the firebox lid and coated the firebox with bat-wash to protect the brick-work from ash deposits [not that we anticipate much ash from our cone 9 first firing]. We ended the day lightly coated with sawdust,brick-dust,battwash and aluminum-calcium cement.The next thing that happens is lighting the fire...