LOWELL BAKER on wed 12 dec 01
So, It sounds like you got it working. My suggestion from only
1500 miles away is that you look at smaller feed tubes. This will
cause some clogging but it will eliminate the problem you have
described which seems to be too much sawdust. You might also
want to build a restrictor plate for the intake on the blower. The
plate will allow you to use the 2"tubing and yet get a reduced flow
of fuel and air. Have you moved the bottom shelf up to the level
where the kiln was cut in half? This will give you a larger firebox to
help burn the fuel better. Also you will have to leave the flue
opening completely open for the sawdust firing. Set the nozzle as
tangentally as you can to force the flow around the kiln. Use that
target brick to hold it to the edge.
Try to get Coffee hulls for fuel. Keep us posted on how well the
homemade castable refractory holds up to the higher temperatures.
You will figure it out. Keep me posted. Ron Rivera will certainly
want to see the results of your work for his projects in Panajachel
and Rabinal.
We have fired two sawdust kilns to cone 12 here since my return
from Guatemala. I add three pounds of salt to the mix over the
high end of the firing. We are getting beautiful results; good ash
and great salt. My little cast/catenary/sawdust/salt kiln is almost
too small for the sawdust firing. It still fires cool in the bottom but
we are working on it. A long firing for this kiln is four hours. We
use a small pickup load of sawdust to take the twenty cubic foot
kiln to cone 12 and hold it for an hour.
I have to go back to my sawdust supplier this afternoon and get my
free trailer load. My students have another kiln loaded and are
preheating it with gas now. We are having rain so we have moved
the burner under a shed roof and will fire through the rain.
Lowell
The University of Alabama
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