Pat Chesney on thu 26 jun 97
When I wrote to someone about our experience with ITC coating, I decided to
quote it to the list. I have no connection to the company in any way. I
just have found this stuff to work for me and hope it will help others.
To recap, we have a 125 cu ft . wood fired kiln that is completely lined
with 6" fiber modules and we were getting loose fiber all over our pots and
losing many of them to the seconds rack or to be thrown away. (Sometimes
25% of our glazed wares). We didn't even know that the fiber was the source
of the bumps and stuff until we coated with ITC 100 and all of the bumps
went away-all! Not to mention the fact that the wood ash flashing increased
for us after coating tremendously. We also got good copper reds-so we can't
complain at all.
>Our worse enemy has turned out to be loose fiber. We are doing everything
>we can to keep it covered with ITC. This has made our firings much more
>profitable and enjoyable.
>
>Another benefit is the treated fiber feels and acts like soft brick. It is
>not flexible or fragile anymore. (Of course, it is only a layer and can be
>broken if you press hard on it. If you leave it alone, it will never wear
>or sag.)
>
>The more I use it, the more I like it. Even if it didn't give us a more
>economical firing, we are saving huge amounts of money in the number of
>firsts instead of seconds or throw aways. We actually had a firing of 125
>cu ft and didn't lose a single pot! That paid for the ITC in one firing
>alone.
We don't know if we are firing faster-some people think we are crazy
because we fire a kiln that big to cone 12 in 10 hours anyway. We have a
hard time holding our kiln down in the early stages so we try to reach 800
F in 4 hours, but it is hard to go that slow.
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Warning the following contains a rather conservative viewpoint-you may wish
to delete now.
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On another note, we can fire this big double Boury with no visible smoke
when we want to. (it goes too fast then for sure) (also, no reds-you think
the EPA Big Brother has a thing against reds?) Just wait till they shut
down your bar-b-que due to global warming. (This is not a joke-it is absurd
though)
It appears that you only contribute to global warming if you don't pay the
big bucks for the permits to polute. The President said today that he will
seek the new tougher air standards (that will shut down *ALL* fuel kilns
that fire in reduction-not just wood or oil). Its funny, since we have had
a 29% improvement in air polution in spite of a tremendous increase in fuel
comsumption.
If it ain't broke don't fix it! Both democrats and republicans are joining
to stop these new measures.
Uh-oh, I went and done it now. I let my bias slip and the kiln isn't the
only thing flaming now. (:>)
Pat Chesney
Pat-Chesney@easy.com
Waco, Texas
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