boobyagga@juno.com on thu 17 nov 05
just a quick question. last night i did my very first alchohol reduction=
experiment. recently with rita hitting...my woodfired kiln is out of or=
der...and i havent quite gotten around to building a raku kiln yet...so =
i was forced to use my electric kiln. =
so the process went like this:
take a pot....fill a sagger with wood chips. wrap pot with copper wiring=
, steel wiring, small amount of cobalt, salt, sugar, steel wool, and lau=
ndry soap. =
cooked it to about 1500 degrees...opened the kiln and cracked the saggar=
to pour in a few spurts of alchohol....close the saggar and let it cool=
down. =
it worked great. i got some great coloration with some beautiful copper =
lines burned into the pot. =
but just wondering...is this safe for my electric kiln??? the salt vapor=
s and smoke and such were rather well contained in the saggar durring he=
at up. the only real worry is the alchohol reduction as it was in direct=
contact with the bricks and elements. i havent seen any information on =
the web against or for this. so i was just wondering if anyone had done =
this repeatedly and noticed any ill effects to their kiln. its a pretty =
old jenkins kiln...so im not sure how sturdy the elements are to begin w=
ith.
thanks guys.
jason palmer
=
Arnold Howard on thu 17 nov 05
Jason, I recommend that you not spurt alcohol into a hot kiln. Alcohol in a
kiln can be more dangerous than a molotov cocktail. Not only is alcohol
highly volatile, but it is almost invisible when it burns, making it
especially dangerous.
Sincerely,
Arnold Howard
Paragon Industries, L.P., Mesquite, Texas USA
ahoward@paragonweb.com / www.paragonweb.com
--------------
From: "boobyagga@juno.com"
so the process went like this:
take a pot....fill a sagger with wood chips. wrap pot with copper wiring,
steel wiring, small amount of cobalt, salt, sugar, steel wool, and laundry
soap.
cooked it to about 1500 degrees...opened the kiln and cracked the saggar to
pour in a few spurts of alchohol....close the saggar and let it cool down.
it worked great. i got some great coloration with some beautiful copper
lines burned into the pot.
but just wondering...is this safe for my electric kiln???
dewitt on thu 17 nov 05
> cooked it to about 1500 degrees...opened the kiln and cracked the saggar =
to pour in a few spurts of alchohol....close the saggar and let it cool dow=
n.
> it worked great. i got some great coloration with some beautiful copper l=
ines burned into the pot.
> but just wondering...is this safe for my electric kiln???
I think a better question is "Is it safe for you?" Sounds dangerous
as hell to me.
deg
Louis Katz on thu 17 nov 05
>
> but just wondering...is this safe for my electric kiln???
no
> the salt vapors and smoke and such were rather well contained in the
> saggar durring heat up.
as thing s heat and give off vapors the vapors take up a lot of space
they may seem contained but are not....
> the only real worry is the alchohol reduction as it was in direct
> contact with the bricks and elements.
I worry that you might be firing inside. Sounds like Carbon Monoxide,
and who knows what else. Danger Will Robinson. Even in a garage I would
worry about this and make sure my door, the big door was wide open, and
not hang out near the kiln etc etc.
> i havent seen any information on the web against or for this.
Just goes to show you that the web isn't the only source of information
and might not be the best
> so i was just wondering if anyone had done this repeatedly and noticed
> any ill effects to their kiln.
heating up wood in your kiln will be hard on all the metal parts. I
don't think the elements are any exception.
> its a pretty old jenkins kiln...so im not sure how sturdy the elements
> are to begin with.
I was talked into putting moth balls into a cooling kiln once (I can be
so foolish). Evaporated reached a critical concentration and blew the
door out a few inches. lucky squared. Me thinks pouring alcohol into a
hot kiln sounds a bit risky.
Louis
Cindy Gatto on thu 17 nov 05
First -opening anything at one thousand five hundred degrees in a closed
area is risky That is if this kiln is indoors,if not okay kinda like raku BUT I
am very sorry but putting any flammable liquid on 1500 degrees just isn't a
smart thing to do especially if it is indoors. Announcing it on a list where
there might be impressionable people well I don't think any of it sounds very
safe It's the same as putting out fire with gasoline Second- I understand
your [wood] [gas] kiln is down and you haven't built a raku kiln yet, but what
is wrong with using an electric kiln for what it is intended to be used
for?You have access to a beautiful body of work-electric fired ware Why not push
the envelope on what you have instead of trying to make it do something it is
not intended for?
Cindy Gatto & Mark Petrin
The Mudpit
228 Manhattan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11206
718-218-9424
_www.mudpitnyc.com_ (http://www.mudpitnyc.com/)
mudpitnyc@aol.com
Lee Love on fri 18 nov 05
Louis Katz wrote:
> I was talked into putting moth balls into a cooling kiln once (I can be
> so foolish). Evaporated reached a critical concentration and blew the
> door out a few inches. lucky squared. Me thinks pouring alcohol into a
> hot kiln sounds a bit risky.
I suppose stuffing M80s and Cherry Bombs into a hot sagger
would cause "temporary" reduction too. ;-)
--
Lee Love
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful,
more simple or more direct than does Nature,
because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous."
--Leonardo da Vinci
boobyagga@juno.com on sun 20 nov 05
hey maybe i should clear some things up safety wise concerning that firi=
ng i did. =
first off...my electric kiln is most definitely outside. i couldnt imagi=
ne doing something like that or anything that creates gases/smoke inside=
. also i took every precaution to stay completely safe. i hate getting b=
urnt as much as the next guy. and also i had the ever watchful eyes of m=
y mother close by. she keeps me safe as much as my desire to stay in one=
peice. :-D =
but yes i didnt consider impressionable people reading this...i seem to =
take it for granted that im the new guy on the block here and everyone e=
lse has exponential ammounts of experience and sage wisdom on me. that m=
ay not always be the case. so i definitely do not want anyone reading th=
at post and running off to go squirt alchohol on a fire and watch the ex=
plosion in the name of art. my dad is a captain of the fire department h=
ere where i live and i cleared everything with him first. i made sure th=
at i had good gloves, leather coat, hat to keep the hair back, tongs, ho=
t pads, water hose close by, supervision/ helper and that there was abso=
lutely nothing burnable closeby. also the ammount of alchohol put on the=
pots was a miniscule ammount. i think people are misconstruing the proc=
ess by thinking i just throw a whole bottle of the stuff on a hot pot an=
d step back. quite the opposite. that would be too much flame and would =
probably blow the pots apart not to mention the destruction of my kiln. =
in actuality i used probably less than half a cup of alchohol. and i use=
d a ladle with something close to a 2 foot handle to pour it on the pots=
. i only poured a few table spoons on at a time...just enough to ignite =
and create a flame that covered the pot. in fact the flames never really=
made it out past the lip of the kiln. sometimes a few stray, long, oxyg=
en starved flames would reach a few inches above...but still a significa=
n ways away from anything harmful. =
ive done some more reseach into the this process and it really is a very=
awesome process that creates some truely beautiful works. i dont want m=
y previous post detering people from trying this by them thinking they a=
re going to lose eyebrows every time they do this. thats not the case at=
all. you just have to be very warry of safety at all times. if its safe=
it can be fun.
really im not worried about the safety of me...but of the elements. im j=
ust wondring if the alchohol has a bad reaction with the nichrome of the=
elements or the coatings they put on them like salt does. its going to =
take me a while to get things up and running with my other kiln and i wo=
uld really like to do this again soon with another few pots. ive got som=
e birthdays and hollidays coming up as everyone else does. and a few of =
my friends have requested some works. so im just wondering if rushing th=
e process endangers my kiln. im rather poor right now and cant quite aff=
ort to repair or buy a new one. =
thanks again guys.
sorry for scaring you all. =
jason palmer
sitting in the kitchen right next to the pot holders and tongs i used in=
the firing with the now finnished and waxed pot drying on the warm stov=
e. =
ill post pictures of the process and work when i have a little more time=
. =
dewitt on mon 21 nov 05
On 11/19/05, boobyagga@juno.com wrote:
> hey maybe i should clear some things up safety wise concerning that firin=
g i did.
Glad to hear that you are taking the precautions you noted, but they
really serve to illustrate that what you are doing is dangerous.=20
Certainly all of us accept a level of risk in everything we do, but
you're going beyond what most would consider acceptable. I rather
suspect that if your Mom and Dad read the replies to your first post,
they wouldn't be quite so accepting either.
deg
Heather Pedersen on tue 22 nov 05
On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 09:28:28 -0600, dewitt wrote:
>On 11/19/05, boobyagga@juno.com wrote:
>> hey maybe i should clear some things up safety wise concerning that
firing i did.
>
>Glad to hear that you are taking the precautions you noted, but they
>really serve to illustrate that what you are doing is dangerous.
>Certainly all of us accept a level of risk in everything we do, but
>you're going beyond what most would consider acceptable. I rather
>suspect that if your Mom and Dad read the replies to your first post,
>they wouldn't be quite so accepting either.
>
>deg
Actually, While it sounds dangerous, I don't really think it is, especially
when taking the proper precautions.
During the last raku firing I attended at the studio I use
(http://www.mamasclay.com/), one of the members was experimenting with
alcohol reduction.
When he first told us what he was going to do we were a little intimidated,
but the actuality was that it seemed was less dangerous then the firing
itself. The way he did it was to pull the pots out of the raku kiln at
temp (1850 deg in this case), just like a normal raku firing, but instead
of using a reduction chamber, he set it down and then squirted some alcohol
on with a spray bottle. The fire flared up about 3 feet, and then was gone
nearly instantly.
After seeing it done I definitely have to take the stand that it is safer
then doing the rest of the raku firing (i.e. no pressurized bottles of high
pressure gas, etc...), and about the same level of danger as using a
reduction chamber, perhaps less because there=92s not enough fuel for it to
burn long.
It just SOUNDS scary, because it is out of the norm, but I have heard that
there are quite a few people experimenting with the technique these days,
so I would expect that it will be more accepted soon, as it comes to a
studio near you.
-=3D Heather Pedersen
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