David Hendley on thu 16 may 02
Soft firebrick scraps are a good resource anytime you need something
that is refractory. I save all of mine and crush them into small pieces.
I made my own castable refractory to cast the chimney on my kiln,
using crushed bricks, cement, grog, and fireclay. You can see the
how-to article in Ceramics Monthly, February 2001.
BTW, the chimney is now 3 years old, and is still in excellent
condition, although the galvanized skin is starting to rust.
I also make all of my kiln posts for stacking the kiln.
For these I made a die for my extruder (1 1/2" square, with a small
hole through the center), and hand extrude them. I calculated the
shrinkage, and made thin wooden slats the right length for each
length of post (i.e., for a 6" post, the slat is 6 1/2" long), to cut them
to length.
The 'recipe' for kiln posts is approximately half and half fireclay
and IFB pieces, by volume. For extruding kiln posts the brick scraps
are passed through a window screen, to keep out any large chunks.
If the extrusion is too rough or tearing too much, you can add some
ball clay.
After extruding, I roll the post in a bed of alumina hydrate, which really
helps protect them in my wood-fired kiln. I then stamp the length
on each side with a number stamp, so it is easy to tell at a glance when
you are loading the kiln what size is what.
When they are dry, they are bisque fired and glaze fired along with
my pottery, not as kiln posts supporting kiln shelves, but just scattered
around the kiln with no weight bearing on them the first time.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
hendley@tyler.net
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul"
> Hello,
> i have a growing collection of broken IFB's from an old kiln and was
> wondering if anyone has been able to make use of this type of thing. the
> thought that comes to mind is mixing it with greenpatch 421 or mortar to
> fill in cracks, and i am interested to hear if anyone has had good results
> doing this or some other method, rather than throwing them away. thanks
> Paul
Brian Molanphy on fri 17 may 02
david wrote :
'After extruding, I roll the post in a bed of alumina hydrate, which really
helps protect them in my wood-fired kiln. I then stamp the length
on each side with a number stamp, so it is easy to tell at a glance when
you are loading the kiln what size is what.
When they are dry, they are bisque fired and glaze fired...'
david,
how do you calculate the shrinkage, in order to stamp the green stilts with
their post-fired height?
brian
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