Kurt Wild on fri 18 may 01
I would guess that most people are applying the ITC too thick -- the rule
is very thin!
Kurt
Lorraine Pierce on sat 19 may 01
Hi Roger...I found the itc patching compound worked well for cementing
broken brick chips back in place, and filling in broken bricks that had been
damaged (chunks out), ie rebuilding element runs that had chipped. When I
tried to use it to even out the irregular top brick layer of my kiln, I
failed, and had to scrape-chip it off. It was fine where thin, but where I
had to build the brick up to a quarter inch full- brick- length, it cracked
when drying. Same look as a clay bed. I have, instead, cut refractory fiber
pieces to fill the gap between kiln body and new lid. My problem was
slightly differently sized bricks from two different companies due to an
earlier repair I did not do, plus the fact that the old bricks had, I
believe, shrunk over the years and also that 20 year old Skutt bricks are
slightly different than those Skutt make today. Will I ever rebuild an old
ten-sided kiln again? I doubt it...Square would be a piece of cake. Then I
wonder if I could get away with building a gas kiln in the back yard if, as
suggested by Mel, I had a removable stack and disguised it as a gas grill!!
Hope this is some help, Lori Pierce in New Port Richey, Fl.
Roger Korn on sat 19 may 01
Kurt wrote: I would guess that most people are applying the
ITC too thick -- the rule is very thin!
Kurt
Exactly! Even the thermal performance of ITC 100 suffers if it is
applied too thick. I measured time-to-cone-10 on identical electric IFB
test kilns and found that the times were:
5 Hr No ITC
4.1 Hr 3 thin coats
3.5 Hr 1 thin coat
This surprised me, but the data repeated on re-testing. I think that
even on fiber hot faces, I may have been applying it too thick, but I
haven't tested this hypothesis yet. Next fiber kiln, I'll try a thin
coat, measure time to temp, then add a coat and remeasure time to temp.
The firmer "crust" that many coats gives "seems" right, but I'll bet
that my intuition here is bass-ackwards.
On another note, would people please post their results using the ITC148
and ITC200 patching products? I'm trying to decide whether to try them
out, but I've been really busy lately, so I'd appreciate any input from
actual users.
Many thanks for all the shared info on this list!
Roger Korn
McKay Creek Ceramics
Box 436
North Plains, OR 97133
rkorn@europa.com
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