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drying cabinet

updated mon 25 dec 00

 

Carol Sandberg on sat 23 dec 00


Hi,
I purchased a bakery proofing cabinet from a bakery auction (six foot tall,
aluminum sides, Plexiglas door, on wheels) and had an electrician install
four ceramic light sockets in the floor of the cabinet. Depending on the
situation, I use regular light bulbs or large heat bulbs to increase the
warmth. We installed a bathroom exhaust fan in the ceiling of the cabinet,
which pulls the warm air through clay pieces, which I place on wire racks.
There is a bracket mounted on the right side of the cabinet which holds a
standard furnace filter, to screen out dust going into the drying chamber
through a couple holes made for ventilation.
The electrician wired it so that I can turn on the lights and the fan
separately.
It has worked well for me....you could do the same thing with a wooden box
or cabinet.

Carol, in an Indiana which freezes the inside of my nostrils, when I walk
the dogs

Original Message -----
From: Thom Mead
To:
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2000 10:19 AM
Subject: speed drying for the novice


Hi Clayarters:

Yes there is a lot of stoneware on the keyboard right now.
I've a bunch of small items that are not drying fast enough
to fire this week! What to do?
If I'm posing one more of 'dem
"It is in the archives, silly..."
things, please give me a one or 2 word direction
as I cannot find the right thread.
Happy hoildays from frozen Georgia
icy and beautiful

Diane
the tired high school teach in GA

Get your FREE download of
MSN Explorer at href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com



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Karen Shapiro on sat 23 dec 00


Hi all,

I have a simpler method if you don't have the
time/inclination to do the proofbox. A friend of mine
suggested that I put 100 watt bulbs inside a shelf
already in my kiln room, wrap it (the entire shelf,
back and front) with that inexpensive polypropylene
sheeting (6 mil works best) and ...voila, a
functioning drying box.
I did this and it has really saved me in the cold
weather.
I love the proofbox idea with fan and everything --
hopefully I'll be able to rig one up eventually, but
for now, the covered shelf is doing the job nicely.

Karen in Gualala

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Robert Santerre on sun 24 dec 00


Here's another one to consider. I bought two racks of plastic shelving (shelves
are made of open slatted plastic - like a honeycomb only square; 4 levels + the
top, 6 ft. high) and taped them together to make a shelving stack appx. 48"X48"X72"
high. I think the company that makes the stackable shelving is Conoco. I got it
at our local Lowes hardware/homeware store. I then got some large plastic
sheeting, cut out ~48"X72" panels and used velcro strips (with adhesive on both
sides) to stick the panels to the sides of the double rack. Also laid plastic
sheets on the bottom and top shelves to fully enclose the unit (made some flaps in
the top panel so I could open or close them to control drying rates. I put two
100 Watt bulbs in the bottom, supported with bricks so they can't fall over and
start a fire (they can get pretty hot). [Actually, I hardly ever use the lights,
just let the work dry slowly at ambient room temp., but if I need to do a "power"
drying, I have the heat source to get the job done with nice even heat.]

In practice, when I dry large platters in this unit (at room temp.) I put one or
two layers of newspaper on a shelf, set the platter on that and then cover it with
a shallow newspaper box that I construct with masking tape - so the platter is
actually sitting in it's own fairly snug newspaper box in the drying cabinet (I
also paint a wax emulsion over the handles of the platter just to keep them from
drying out faster then the rim). This may sound like a lot of work, but once
everything's in place it's pretty simple - and my platters dry evenly without
cracking - using a fairly tight clay body with some tendency to be unforgiving when
it comes to cracking of large flat surfaces, Moonwhite from Highwater.

Works for me. Bob
rfsanterre@iquest.net

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Karen Shapiro wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have a simpler method if you don't have the
> time/inclination to do the proofbox. A friend of mine
> suggested that I put 100 watt bulbs inside a shelf
> already in my kiln room, wrap it (the entire shelf,
> back and front) with that inexpensive polypropylene
> sheeting (6 mil works best) and ...voila, a
> functioning drying box.
> I did this and it has really saved me in the cold
> weather.
> I love the proofbox idea with fan and everything --
> hopefully I'll be able to rig one up eventually, but
> for now, the covered shelf is doing the job nicely.
>
> Karen in Gualala
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
> http://shopping.yahoo.com/
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.