james & becca sydnor on wed 9 oct 96
I,m in the process of building a down draft kiln, about 50cu/ft, 2600
soft bricks, two forced air burners (about 375,000btu's a each). I have
most of the design worked out, but I am using the design in the Nils Lou
book for the burner port size, and most importantly the flue and
chimney. He indicates that this design and size works well with a
variety of kiln sizes. I was wondering if anyone has experience with
this design and if so would that e-mail me about their opinion of the
design.
Thanks for the info
Jim Sydnor
Talbott on thu 10 oct 96
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I,m in the process of building a down draft kiln, about 50cu/ft, 2600
>soft bricks, two forced air burners (about 375,000btu's a each). I have
>most of the design worked out, but I am using the design in the Nils Lou
>book for the burner port size, and most importantly the flue and
>chimney. He indicates that this design and size works well with a
>variety of kiln sizes. I was wondering if anyone has experience with
>this design and if so would that e-mail me about their opinion of the
>design.
>
>Thanks for the info
>Jim Sydnor
JIM---We used Nils' design from his book "The Art of Firing" and the burner
ports, flue, flue damper, and chimney works fine- we also bought our 2
burners from Nils-- they generate about 500,000 btu/h each and they are
great-our kiln is about the same size as yours---Marshall
Marshall Talbott
Pottery By Celia
Route 114
P.O. Box 4116
Naples, Maine 04055-4116
(207)693-6100 voice and fax
clupus@ime.net
Arturo Devitalis on thu 10 oct 96
Jim it works just as Nils describes...very sensitive and very effective
control of reduction...I too use forced air burners. In fact my damper has
been marked with pencil for neutral & reduction settings and they don't
change much with different load configurations.
--
Arturo DeVitalis
arto@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
"Rafael Molina-Rodriguez (Rafael Molina-Rodriguez)" on fri 18 oct 96
Jim:
Lou's "Art of Firing" is a great book. A wealth of information. It and
Rhodes "Kilns" and Olsen's "Kiln Book" are the three resources I use
when designing and building kilns. There is one area of the book I'm not
exactly sure of. It's Lou's contention that the double venturi flue box will
work with any kiln design.
As soon as I read "Art of Firing" I was so impressed I changed the exit
flue and chimney to a soda kiln I constructed. That kiln is a 24 cu. ft. hard
fire brick sprung arch downdraft. The burners are four "Alfred" type 2"
pipe burners using natural gas. There are two on each side of kiln with
bagwall deflecting/dispersing flame and heat.
I reduced the size of the exit flue from the chamber and constructed the
flue box and stack exactly as specified. It didn't work.
I tried everything: oxidation, reduction, less gas(W.C.I), more gas, longer
firing cycle, open damper, restricted damper, added to chimney stack. I
even put blowers on burners, which I had never used before. Nothing
worked. I fired it three times approximately 20-24 hour firing cycles and
the highest temperature I achieved was cone 6 barely on the bottom.
I went back to the 9" x 9" exit flue. I did stay with the flue box and stack
design sans venturi which I think are excellent designs. The kiln works
great. I fire to cone 7 in about 12 hours. Good even heat, atmosphere,
and vapor.
Has anyone else out there had a similar experience? I believe the MFT is
an excellent kiln design. My experience makes me think the double
venturi flue box only works with the MFT design and IFB materials.
Rafael Molina
Rmr3431@dcccd.edu
>>> james & becca sydnor 10/09/96 09:45pm >>>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I,m in the process of building a down draft kiln, about 50cu/ft, 2600
soft bricks, two forced air burners (about 375,000btu's a each). I have
most of the design worked out, but I am using the design in the Nils Lou
book for the burner port size, and most importantly the flue and
chimney. He indicates that this design and size works well with a
variety of kiln sizes. I was wondering if anyone has experience with
this design and if so would that e-mail me about their opinion of the
design.
Thanks for the info
Jim Sydnor
Marcia Selsor & Matt Benacquista on fri 18 oct 96
Rafael Molina-Rodriguez (Rafael Molina-Rodriguez) wrote:
> > Jim Sydnor
I have been building kilns since we built them in Philadelphia
for the Ceramics program at PCA in the '60's. Petras Vaskys and Bill
Daley were in charge. We built a catenary soft brick kiln with two large
forced air burners on a Johnson premix blower. We built a
sprung arch salt kiln with a castable arch. Since then, I helped design
and build kilns for Mudfats in Boston, Rock Springs, Wyo., Seville and
Agost in Spain. I designed all the kilns at MSU-B since 1975 including
a MFT, castable soda kilns, sprung arch kilns, raku kilns, etc. I built
several kilns in Grad School at SIU Carbondale. I inherited a system at
MSU-B which had a burner system
and combersome forced air system in front of the doors of two kilns.
Since that time I build kilns with burners in the rear, one on each side
of the chimney and out of my way to load the kilns. I use two venturi
burners for most kilns using an ample stack(chimney) for good
draft. Our current 60 cu ft. sprung arch car kiln has a flu opening
12 x 12" corbeled _--_. We have "finger tip" control in that a slight
touch of the damper or a little adjustment on the air have a result.
I mentioned geographic altitude a few months ago when there was
discussion about chimney size. We used an exact copy of an Olsen
wood kiln design in Banff and could not get above 1900 degrees.
(twice). The flu/chimney was too small for sufficient draft at 6,000
ft. I learned this through my own experience in Montana coming from
sea level of Philadelphia. Les Manning called Olsen and he confirmed
that that was true. He forgot to mention it in his book.
I think one must devlop a sense of proportions when building kilns.
I still like the out of print Soldner book the best.
Marcia in Montana
--
Marci Selsor
Matt Benacquista
http://www.imt.net/~mjbmls/
mjbmls@imt.net
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