Tony Ferguson on mon 15 jul 02
Evan,
You can use red brick on the outside of your kiln. Design your kiln first
based on your needs and then see if you have enough red brick to cover.
Adding red brick is usually about aesthetics of the kiln as well as
protecting the exterior of the kiln surface and your kiln will take longer
to cool which I say is a good thing. In "The Kiln Book" you will see
pictures of kilns with red brick on the outside. The kiln I used in
graduate school had such an exterior of red brick. I believe the interior
was a double wall of standard softbrick straits. Worked like a charm.
Still is in great shape. Consider, however, any repairs would have to be
made from the inside. You can always build a pizza oven!
Thank you.
Tony Ferguson
Stoneware, Porcelain, Raku
www.aquariusartgallery.com
218-727-6339
315 N. Lake Ave
Apt 312
Duluth, MN 55806
----- Original Message -----
From: "Evan Clifford"
To:
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 6:31 PM
Subject: Can you use normal red bricks to construct a kiln?
> We have recently re-done our porch and have a large amount of bricks left
> over. Would it be possible to construct a kiln from these bricks and line
> the inside with firebrick? If so what would be a good way to do this? I
> am guessing that it is obviously going to be a gas kiln. Thanks a lot for
> any advice in advance.
> -Evan
>
>
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Evan Clifford on mon 15 jul 02
We have recently re-done our porch and have a large amount of bricks left
over. Would it be possible to construct a kiln from these bricks and line
the inside with firebrick? If so what would be a good way to do this? I
am guessing that it is obviously going to be a gas kiln. Thanks a lot for
any advice in advance.
-Evan
Steve Mills on tue 16 jul 02
Could also be a small wood kiln, have a look at:
http://www.mudslinger.demon.co.uk/web2/page2.html
We build kilns out of house bricks; red ones are good for earthenware
temps, if they're buff, like ours, they could go a lot higher!
Steve
Bath
UK
In message , Evan Clifford writes
>We have recently re-done our porch and have a large amount of bricks left
>over. Would it be possible to construct a kiln from these bricks and line
>the inside with firebrick? If so what would be a good way to do this? I
>am guessing that it is obviously going to be a gas kiln. Thanks a lot for
>any advice in advance.
>-Evan
--
Steve Mills
Bath
UK
vince pitelka on tue 16 jul 02
> We have recently re-done our porch and have a large amount of bricks left
> over. Would it be possible to construct a kiln from these bricks and line
> the inside with firebrick? If so what would be a good way to do this? I
> am guessing that it is obviously going to be a gas kiln. Thanks a lot for
> any advice in advance.
Evan -
If the bricks are normal red bricks, then they normally are not much good in
kiln construction. They will not stand up to hot-face use, especially in a
high-fire kiln. Some people try to use them as an outside layer, since the
walls of home-built kilns are normally 9"thick. There are several problems
with this. The burner ports and flue openings need to be lined with
firebrick through the whole thickness of the walls, and you also need to
have frequent header courses to tie the inside and outside layers together.
Usually you lay one header course for each three or four stretcher courses.
The header course is where the bricks are laid side by side with the ends on
the inside and outside of the kiln, whereas a stretcher course is where the
bricks are laid end-to-end along the length of the wall. The problem here
there is that red brick are almost never standard firebrick size. A
standard firebrick, whether IFB or hardbrick, is 9" by 4 1/2" by 2 1/2",
while red bricks are almost always smaller.
Normally home-built kilns are loose-stacked, with no mortar between bricks.
If you are determined to use the red bricks for this application, you can
loose-stack the inside layer of firebricks, and mortar the outside layer of
red bricks in order to make the courses match up. All of your header
courses (where the bricks are placed side-by-side so that one end is on the
inside of the kiln and one end on the outside) will have to be firebrick
(either hardbrick or IFB). If you mortar the red bricks very carefully, you
should be able to keep each course of red bricks at exactly the same height
as the adjacent firebrick, so that when you do a header course it will fit
properly.
This sounds like a whole lot of trouble. If it were me, I'd build a patio
with the red bricks and use all firebrick for the kiln.
Good luck -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@worldnet.att.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
Dave Finkelnburg on tue 16 jul 02
Evan,
Yes, you can build a kiln with such brick, especially if you insulate
the hot-face. However, I fear you will be disappointed with the result.
Any hard-brick kiln is by nature poorly insulated. You'll spend a lot for
fuel, and it will be slow to heat. This is besides the construction
problems Vince notes. Better to use insulating brick or better yet, ceramic
fiber. These are commonly used in gas kilns.
Fire brick is used to line wood kilns, to resist the attack of flux
vapors from the wood, but that is a special case. It takes a lot of wood to
warm up that heavy brick.
Dave Finkelnburg
From: Evan Clifford
>We have recently re-done our porch and have a large amount of bricks left
>over. Would it be possible to construct a kiln from these bricks and line
>the inside with firebrick?
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