so, this potters life has been anything but pottery lately. I know i am giving tons of info and guidance to the potters of western piedmont CC's prof. crafts program, but i have not made pots for myself until yesterday! been a long break and it feels so good to be in the saddle again. On other fronts I the kiln business has been busy for the economic downturn. Will baker and I went up to salem Va to build a car kiln (images of that will come later!) It was a successful build even though we battled negative windchills every day, frozen wet saw, and i had either a stomach flue or food poisoning for 30 hours! WE pulled thru and still finished the kiln in 5-6 days. Upon return school started back up and the following weekend i spent at linda mcfarlings studio ripping up her floor, firebox castable and one of the door jamb walls, these are the pics you see here! The bricks in what i call the firewall had been eaten away so badly that the bagwall fell in during a firing. there are pics of a couple of these bricks, you can see how bad they were damaged. We replaced them with some andalusite brick which are high fire superduty, high alumina in content. The brick were 15" long so they made a nice replacement to the front of the floor where all the soda action takes place. After the demo and rebuild was finished i added some metal around the floor and cut a new hole since i moved the main side soda port higher. I still need to remud and add two pieces of threaded rod, but the kiln is functional, enjoy the pics. I will update the va kiln soon and some goings on at school. I need to keep this blog a rolling! happy potting
the doctor
so, this potters life has been anything but pottery lately. I know i am giving tons of info and guidance to the potters of western piedmont CC's prof. crafts program, but i have not made pots for myself until yesterday! been a long break and it feels so good to be in the saddle again. On other fronts I the kiln business has been busy for the economic downturn. Will baker and I went up to salem Va to build a car kiln (images of that will come later!) It was a successful build even though we battled negative windchills every day, frozen wet saw, and i had either a stomach flue or food poisoning for 30 hours! WE pulled thru and still finished the kiln in 5-6 days. Upon return school started back up and the following weekend i spent at linda mcfarlings studio ripping up her floor, firebox castable and one of the door jamb walls, these are the pics you see here! The bricks in what i call the firewall had been eaten away so badly that the bagwall fell in during a firing. there are pics of a couple of these bricks, you can see how bad they were damaged. We replaced them with some andalusite brick which are high fire superduty, high alumina in content. The brick were 15" long so they made a nice replacement to the front of the floor where all the soda action takes place. After the demo and rebuild was finished i added some metal around the floor and cut a new hole since i moved the main side soda port higher. I still need to remud and add two pieces of threaded rod, but the kiln is functional, enjoy the pics. I will update the va kiln soon and some goings on at school. I need to keep this blog a rolling! happy potting
the doctor
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2 comments:
DO you know how she introduces soda into the kiln. Also, do you know if the kiln has a protective refractory coating on the interior?
chris
linda's kiln has seen many versions of soday introduction, she mainly sprays with a garden sprayer. When i built this kiln five years ago it originally had a zircon coating applied. It was very expensive and i do not feel it worked very well. If the interior was scraped or rubbed with a rub brick then recoated every 2-3 firings it may have held up better. I am against coatings as i like kilns to season. If you have ever fired a kiln that is very old you will know what i am talking about. good luck!
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