Reid Harvey on thu 30 aug 01
Friends,
Venturi burners are made here in Bangladesh and there is a good supply
of gas. So several of us are anxious to build a gas kiln or two, to
substitute for the more widely used electric kilns. Electricity is more
expensive and the power supply is not dependable. We would like to build
a small production kiln of 1.0 to 2.0 cubic meter capacity, probably a
catenary arch, and we'd appreciate any observations on appropriate
burner size, as well as dimensions of ports and flue. I suspect we'll
end up doing cross draft.
Also, any insights on a simple way, at the beginning of firings, not to
get a kiln full of unburned gas would be appreciated. A lot of the
automatic equipment used in the U.S. and elsewhere is not available
here, so we won't be able to use the same kind of pilots, fail safe
shutoff, etc. Worst case we'll just have to eyeball the flame, pretty
much until it's self igniting. This approach makes me a bit nervous. At
some time in the past I'm sure the burners were successfully used
without these devices. Or maybe we could make a primitive pilot. Any
ideas?
I would imagine that some potters can do successfully do without the
extra equipment, but would imagine they went through a tenuous breakin
period, and have come to know their kiln inside out. My experieince with
gas is limited to use smaller kilns back in the dark ages, but the
bigger kilns seem to be a different ball of wax.
Reid Harvey
To read a recent presentation on earthenware water purifier candles,
click:
http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/remediation/ACER.html
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