Jonathan Pennington on mon 17 dec 01
Well, I was worried about the fact that all the hardware on my kiln
bolted into the walls, including the kiln controller (I just don't
have enough experience to know the limits of what I can screw with
yet). After a flurry of private posts, I learned that many people just
rip it out anyway (who needs handles? I'll move the thing once a year
if that). Cool. All the hardware is off my walls, and my $75 worth of 1
inch kaowool is installed between the bricks and the steel. I'm still
uncertain about what to do with this controller, but I think I'm going
to build a mount right next to the kiln and mount it to *that* instead
of the kiln walls. I also took a bunch of scrap IFB, laid it on top of
my old kiln, cut it to the same shape as the original lid and braced
it together dry with hose clamp. (wife asked me if it *was* the
original lid, that made me feel good :-). Now I, as Carolyn and
others, have a 3 inch top to add to my 2.5 inch original. As well as
this, I took some of that $.10/ea used firebrick, the hard stuff,
and built a wall around the kiln about 4 inches away (no top, just a
wall). The reason for this is that I'm in a flood zone, so my house is
on piers. The kiln is under the house- essentially outside. I'm hoping
that my wall of firebrick will shield the kiln surface somewhat from
the wind and other sources of heat loss via convection. Plus, I can
put a large piece of plywood over the "room" and warm that space up a
bit with a tiny space heater. With this set up, even in the dead of
winter when it's below the temperature that the kiln is rated to fire
in, the space that the kiln is in will still be warm enough to fire so
I can fire year round with an outdoor kiln. (Now if I could only
convince the town that the building codes should allow for gas kilns,
I might be able to build an actual studio :-)
First firing will be a bisque just after Xmas. Assuming all goes well,
total layout of extra cost was $20 for the firebrick, about $10 worth
of used IFB, $10 worth of hose clamps, and $75 worth of 1 inch
kaowool (fiberboard, etc.). Extra hundred bucks or so to make the kiln
what it should be isn't bad at all. If there's a FAQ, this should go
in it- it seems to be pretty much the final word of all the gurus.
* mel jacobson [011217 15:54]:
> but, it is still about `doin something about a bad kiln`.
> don't sit there and whine.
That sounds strangely pejorative, I feel as though I've been chastised
by father- father of the list, in any case. My apologies, Mel, if that
*is* the case, I certainly did not mean to whine.
Happy holidays to everyone.
--
Jonathan Pennington | jwpennin@bellsouth.net
"There are no pots, there is only clay." -original
"It's hard to take life too seriously
when you realize yours is a joke." -also original
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