Happy new year

I managed to spend 3 days last week working on the kiln with the help of  Steve Parry. We had a little delay due to storms having blown the cover off the chimney hole in the roof and the former getting wet and losing rigidity, but eventually with plenty of make shift supports which made climbing inside the structure feel a little like desending into an old mine: we managed to make a start on the arch.

Having corbled in the first layers of lateral bricks we are now laying front to back stepping in from the front and back to get the two sides of the arch to meet. I'll then brick back out forward and back to tie the arch into the door arch and into the bottom of the chimney.

I'm hoping that this week we should be able to get most of the key bricks cut and in place.  There are also about 15 dense concrete hollows to carry to the other side of the kiln for buttressing before the chimney gets too high. The outside of the whole hot face arch will then need to be dry rammed with fireclay in preparation for the secondary arch to be laid. It's finally starting to take shape.