Marcia Selsor on thu 27 sep 01
Dear Jeremy,
I have a vertical lift kiln too. I use 4 pulleys to avoid torque. Works
great.
I built it and welded it myself. I found a cart at the recycling place
and roll it
outside, put the posts in place and put the top with the pulleys into
the posts.
Takes 5 minutes to set up. I also use perforated kiln shelves I got from
Euclids.
They are perfect for raku.
My kiln cost about $20 for the metal, $15 for the cart, $17 for shelf,
three boxes
of bricks for the floor -$150, 3/4 roll of 2" fiber $100, hardware $16,
ITC $60
and used rigidizer which I had for a long time on the outside of the
fiber, $132
for 3 full tanks of petrol, and $172 for my burner system from Ward's.
$622. My
time? I am retired. I built the raku kiln of my dreams for large horse
plaques
27x 36 x 24 with 2 courses of bricks on the floor.
I can pull slabs from either side when the chamber is up. Cycles take
about 20
minutes once I get going. The clamshell looked good to me except that I
didn't
think it work for my pieces.
marcia Selsor in Montana
Jeremy McLeod wrote:
> > Does anyone have any experience with a "clamshell" kiln?
>
> I've been part of several raku firings using one that's about 30" on a
side.
> It's made some aspects of that controlled chaos of pulling ware from
kiln
> to reduction chamber easier. With careful loading of kiln (thinking
of
> the order in which things need to be pulled) and careful placement of
> the kiln itself (relative to the reduction chambers), the "clamshell"
concept
> makes things flow well.
>
> Having said that, the price tag on such an item purchased commercially
> is higher than this cheapskate wants to bear. I've scrounged
materials
> from various thrift shops and purchased the ceramic fibre. So far a
> cube that I'll have to lift off vertically is costing me far less than
the
> $800-1000 nut I've seen on commercial "clamshells".
>
> Jeremy McLeod
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