gary navarre on fri 21 nov 08
Hay Crew,
About all that is needed is lagging in 7' of chimney and it should fire pretty hot! The problem is the weather changed to too cold for these dried up old bones, so now I can get to making some pots and editing the videos form summer into something intelligible. One piece from last year "Koie Cooker Recycled" just got it's second part...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpABrnPCbho
... where I make an open chimney from the 4 1/2"x6"x12" Empires Rick found in the old Norway Elementary School in an attempt to burn off some of the pitch left by burning Balsam brush in the Koie Cooker for glaze ash. It's kinda neat how fast I get a flame that looks like it could be coming from my new kiln. That open bricking would make an interestingly functional chimney cap if I could get a similar flame at each stoke with little smoke. It would be neat if I ended up getting a relatively smokeless kiln.
The next piece details a little of adding some pieces of Styrofoam to the 3" thick arch templates I made from some I found out in the woods. I bet it was scrap from when Mary Hayes had her modular built 10 years ago. Beside a good dose of my scintillating dialog and Ninja like moves about half way through Olof goes off when the Coyotes start fighting over their kill about 3/4 of a mile away. It's a good thing he got confused and went the opposite direction looking for his share...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LaNYKqFG0c
As always for the present stage we have to stick to the stills and I think we left off just before finishing the Bourry firebox. After I sat back and looked at it for a while I realized the bricks around the top stoke hole are not lagged in so I can stoke some pretty good sized 35 1/5" pieces of that slab wood Mace gave me. I haven't had a chance to buck the slabs yet so I don't know how those wide rugged ends will split out. My concern is the thinner end would burn off dropping a big chunk into the coals. Mixing in a Maple log or two would keep the Pine above the coals long enough to burn well. After doing the firebox I decided to listen to Mel and Gail I got some blanket from Tim Fredricks to cover the 4 1/2" thick portions of the kiln wall. The only snag came when I ran out and decided to use up some of what was inside the garbage can raku kiln Dart gave me instead of ordering another roll. Laying the blanket starts in the middle of this page...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/ca/kpap/uph08pov/page4.html
That's it for the summer work, now a new album for the winter work. The base of the stack had a funny looking protrusion made by the Empire blocks around the damper area but it was not wide enough to hold the outer layer of the 11' stack. Consequently I had to figure a way to set a second layer of brick around the base that would create enough of a ledge to hold the upper outer layer. The result works and I can add the plain old red brick Harry C. gave me to the outside of the base up to the ledge for more support. After getting everything covered with plastic sheeting and battened down for snow I started playing with fire and put some charcoal and twigs in the pignose to see if I we get some flow with 4' of stack...
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/ca/kpap/uphoba08wntr/
... and the neat thing is we did even with all the crappy rainy weather. Of course I'm thinking of how I could get away with bone drying pots above the oil furnace, loading them a shelf or two at a time and lighting some coals for a while to keep things from freezing but I forgot what the consensus on loading and freezing was. If I wanted to afford the cost I could get a small electric heater and set it in the pignose on medium for a while to see if that would work but I think I'll just have to be patient and wait for decent weather. We still have 4 months of winter to go through so stay tuned and stay in there eh!
Gary Navarre
Navarre Pottery
Navarre Enterprises
Norway, Michigan, USA
http://www.youtube.com/GindaUP
http://public.fotki.com/GindaUP/
| |
|
