Mark Tigges on wed 22 mar 06
Thus far I have been succesfull at not posting messages at every stage
of construction.
But ... I believe I have hit a milestone. And I have much knowledge
to relay. It might not be new knowledge to many, but it certainly is
to me. Hopefully it's worth something to someone else.
I brought the fully cemented halves of the floor of my kiln to the
studio yesterday, and cemented them together. Clamping them to cure
overnight with a webbing clamp.
Today, I sanded the floor to even out the bumbs, and get the wall
courses to sit nice and flat.
I believe this to be a major milestone. Construction of the floor and
ceiling (presumably) was the big learning hurdle that I have thus far
overcome. Were I to ever do it again, I would consider not
mortaring/cementing the floor. But I've now learned how to do it, and
hopefully the ceiling will be much cleaner and nicer than the floor
is.
The floor looks incredibly messy. It's because of my inexperience
using refractory mortar. For those of you who have used it, surely
you understand, it's fickle stuff. If you're mortaring rowlock
courses in place, it's surely great. But mortaring a floor together
that you constantly need to move and adjust to add rows/bricks, makes
it very difficult. The mortar has very little green strength.
Fortunately I've found a new product which allows me to forego mortar
all together.
Doubtless some of you reading have NO idea what I'm talking about.
I'm in the process of building myself an electric kiln, I've gone into
great detail about the progress in real time at the following link:
http://m2crafts.ca/kiln.html
Regards,
Mark.
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