After Phoenix Firings Four and Five, the shelves looked a mess, but the sand had prevented most of the glass spillages from reaching the kiln batts, making them very easy to clean and tidy up with an angle grinder. The low daub walls had broken, but had largely prevented the sand from falling into the firepit.

The upturned pots that were used as sieges had not broken, so could all be re-used to hold glass if necessary.

We lost some of the collars, notably the wide one in front of the left-hand side gathering hole.

Most of the normal cracks on both the hot face and the cold face had opened up, so once again would have to be filled with high temperature sealant before giving the hot face another coat of zircon silicate slip.

We lost two of the small brackets for the shelf support tubes, which we had to retrieve from the ashes in the firepit.

The firepit cleaned up well, although there were a few small splashes of molten glass, which was only to be expected.

After cleaning and tidying up the firing and melting chambers, it was just a case of filling the cracks with high temperature sealant and fire cement, before repainting where necessary with a coat of zircon silicate slip.

We replaced the shelves, using two sets, ready for Phoenix Firing Six, built a new low daub wall around each shelf and filled the space with sand.

We also glued the two small brackets back into place, using fire cement.