mel jacobson on mon 9 jul 12
kerry brooks is having big issues with her six electric
kilns. she uses a great deal of glass in her work, and the
fumes, gases really are taking a toll on her kilns. (almost like salt.)
kerry is making orders like 50,000 coasters at a time for a national chain.=
she
has twenty young (in need) employees. the spirit of work and
production in that small factory is amazing. kerry continues to
make her fine line of big platters and bowls, but now has three
young, very strong men to help her do the throwing. they center
all the clay for her. she moves from one wheel to the other.
i spent some time with her last week, and her young
employees put new brick on the top rows, added some new
coils and two new tops.
i taught them how to spray itc 100 and we coated all
six kilns. the fellows took turns spraying, and we
used three different `sand blasting guns` and found one
that really worked well. it was a very interesting day...and
we are doing some research in how well the itc will stick to
a pretty beat up skutt kiln.
there were about 8 young potters/workers in on the project,
and i asked them all to observe and see how things are holding
up, as they load and unload those kilns daily, and see everything.
it seems that those young potters sort of `get it` with some sort
of thermal liner. they see the great damage that can ruin really
nice kilns. it does not take long.
the new owners of itc are going to let me develop a `kit form` of itc
products that can be used on an electric home kiln, or a gas kiln. they
are working on tweaking the product to produce a `thermal shield` system
for any small kiln.
the kit will have a quart of base coating, a half pint of metal coat for
the coils, and a pint of top coat/white. we will include a sand blasting
gun. this is all for the future..not this week. have a great deal to figu=
re
out. and, i have to work on a small pamphlet of detailed instructions and
a short instructional video. they will compensate me for my time. (want to
make that clear, and i will not pimp anything...) one way or another, i wi=
ll
let folks know how this `stop gap` action works for kerry. she goes throug=
h
a great many coils and top bricks each month. she wants to see for `hersel=
f`
how this liner works. as it should be.
(and, you can imagine her electric bill, with six big kilns going full bore
almost every day. she is charting her electric use...we will see if itc he=
lps.)
she also fires a 60 cubic foot gas/car kiln. cone 10 glass melt. ron roy =
is helping
her sort out some glaze, glass, clay body issues. ron is the best.
mel
from: minnetonka, mn
website: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/
clayart link: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/clayart.html
JRodgers on mon 9 jul 12
Mel,
During the years of operation of my production facility in Alaska, we
produced thousands of porcelain items pretty much exclusively and they
were never glazed, only china painted. Once in a scant while we might
fire a few earthenware items, which did get a clear glaze. We noted
over time that the windows in the facility took on a frosted glass
appearance. It was as if the glass had been treated with hydrofloric
acid. It was worse in the area where the kilns were located. That effect
was less and less the further away from the kilns one went. We didn't
change the kiln elements that often, but the top bricks took a beating.
All that was in my early years in clay and I didn't know enough then to
connect the dots as to how, what, and why things were happening, Lots
more experience under the belt now. Don't know the relevancy of this to
Kerry's problems, but perhaps it provides some insight into the issue of
corrosion. Our windows most certainly did.
John R
On 7/9/2012 7:39 AM, mel jacobson wrote:
> kerry brooks is having big issues with her six electric
> kilns. she uses a great deal of glass in her work, and the
> fumes, gases really are taking a toll on her kilns. (almost like salt.)
>
> kerry is making orders like 50,000 coasters at a time for a national chai=
n. she
> has twenty young (in need) employees. the spirit of work and
> production in that small factory is amazing. kerry continues to
> make her fine line of big platters and bowls, but now has three
> young, very strong men to help her do the throwing. they center
> all the clay for her. she moves from one wheel to the other.
>
> i spent some time with her last week, and her young
> employees put new brick on the top rows, added some new
> coils and two new tops.
>
> i taught them how to spray itc 100 and we coated all
> six kilns. the fellows took turns spraying, and we
> used three different `sand blasting guns` and found one
> that really worked well. it was a very interesting day...and
> we are doing some research in how well the itc will stick to
> a pretty beat up skutt kiln.
>
> there were about 8 young potters/workers in on the project,
> and i asked them all to observe and see how things are holding
> up, as they load and unload those kilns daily, and see everything.
> it seems that those young potters sort of `get it` with some sort
> of thermal liner. they see the great damage that can ruin really
> nice kilns. it does not take long.
>
> the new owners of itc are going to let me develop a `kit form` of itc
> products that can be used on an electric home kiln, or a gas kiln. they
> are working on tweaking the product to produce a `thermal shield` system
> for any small kiln.
>
> the kit will have a quart of base coating, a half pint of metal coat for
> the coils, and a pint of top coat/white. we will include a sand blasting
> gun. this is all for the future..not this week. have a great deal to fi=
gure
> out. and, i have to work on a small pamphlet of detailed instructions an=
d
> a short instructional video. they will compensate me for my time. (want =
to
> make that clear, and i will not pimp anything...) one way or another, i =
will
> let folks know how this `stop gap` action works for kerry. she goes thro=
ugh
> a great many coils and top bricks each month. she wants to see for `hers=
elf`
> how this liner works. as it should be.
> (and, you can imagine her electric bill, with six big kilns going full bo=
re
> almost every day. she is charting her electric use...we will see if itc =
helps.)
>
> she also fires a 60 cubic foot gas/car kiln. cone 10 glass melt. ron ro=
y is helping
> her sort out some glaze, glass, clay body issues. ron is the best.
> mel
> from: minnetonka, mn
> website: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/
> clayart link: http://www.visi.com/~melpots/clayart.html
>
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