mel jacobson on fri 11 jun 99
kurt and i have cast the tops of the fire box and the top
loading area of the tiny train kiln.
we have built 2x4 wooden frames about 18x36 inches, lined them
with plastic, sat them on a flat surface.
arnie loaned us his small cement mixer and kurt in his perfectionist
pattern weighed out all the materials and water in five different sets of
containers.
we dry tumbled the castable for about 3 minutes, added stainless
steel pins (small threads of stainless, used with castable), then
added the perscribed amount of water.
mixed for a long time, maybe 6 minutes........packed this material
into the molds and pounded it tight.
we covered the 5 frames with a blue platic tarp and let the
dry covered for about a week.
yesterday we pulled them from the molds and stacked them
into the salt kiln with broken kiln shelves in between them as
spacers. we candled the kiln most of the morning with just
the pilots, then turned on one of our tiny burners and brought
the kiln to 300F. held it there for 5 hours. turned on the
two big burners low for two more hours.......then started to
turn them up each hour.......finished about 11 last night....kiln
fired to about 1900 F. we also fired all of our m-board (kaowool)
that we will use for dampers and fire box doors.
we will pour the slab for the kiln this noon time. it is 8x16 feet,
6 inches thick.......reinforced.
the slab has been placed next to the salt kiln shelter. we are
not going to enclose this kiln under the shelter. want it to have
a great deal of air space. perhaps we will extend the metal roof
over the kiln later, but more than likely will just cover the kiln
with a tarp for winter.
we will start the kiln construction next week when the gang from
hay creek arrives, we are going to put a bungie cord on nils to
keep him away from the brick pile.
our plan is to make him paint all week, be creative, eat food
and generally be a smarty pants.
linda blossom is going to teach us all how to make a tile
wall, we are in hopes of having her tile the entire inside
hay loft of the barn.
we should have a firing in the new baby train before the
end of june. we will write to you all with the progress of this
project. kurt has done a marvelous job of getting this project
underway. it is his baby, and he will do a great job no doupt.
mel/mn a bit sore all over, but know that i am alive.
MAIL FROM HAY CREEK
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