Tying up ends

Well, The first firing is about a month away and  yesterday was spent with Rob collecting four bundles of hardwood edgings which are now stacked undercover. The rest of the wood for the firing (about 8 palletts of pine edgings), is hopefully coming the week after next, so fuel gathering is well underway.

I've also started laying the floor and grate, all the whole bricks are layed and now I've got to start cutting filler bricks. This will be done the week after next as I'm busy doing other things next week. The steel uprights should also be finished next week so again week after next I should be able to get the bulk of it done.

  As the firing gets closer and seeing the inside of the kiln taking shape, I'm starting to be able to visualise how the kiln might be packed. Exciting stuff!

A taste of spring

Last Wednesday with the help of Alex and Robin,  3rd year students on the 3DD programme, we got the insulation layer onto the kiln. A 4 to 5" layer springing from the side insulation blocks covering the whole arch. It was an ideal day for doing the job, warm and sunny which made the mixing and spreading the 2 tons of mix slightly more enjoyable. Now just waiting for the metalwork to be completed and I can then bolt and cement it in place.

I'm now well into making work for the first firing. Starting with the largest pieces and working down, there's one more large composite vessel to make and then i'll start on the smaller pieces, I've already been making new platters and bowls which are being bisc fired at the moment.

It's all going on behind the scenes

Not much has changed externally to the kiln since last week. Any gaps between the hot face bricks and the tops of the insulation bricks have been filled with sand in preparation for the insulation layer to be laid which will be happening with the help of Rob and Alex, 2 of our 3D final year students on Wednesday. The insulation mix will be roughly :

6 parts Sand
1pts fireclay
1pt Portland cement
1 pt lime
4pts cotton fibres
5litres Pearlite

 Behind the scenes with many thanks to Chris and Pete the large RSJ which I plan to use as the uprights for the exterior bracing has been cut in half and has been marked up for cutting and drilling also next week, these can then be bolted to the ground and secured to the wall and the large horizontal brace bolted into place.

Another pallet of straights has been ordered for the floor, grate and door as well, so hopefully by the end of next week externally the kiln will be complete with just the secondary floor to lay. The first firing will be mid April, this gives the whole structure plenty of time to dry etc. and plenty of work will be made to fill it. More of this later :-)

Can you tell what it is yet?

Much better week this week, I managed to get lots of outstanding bits done. Early on, any gaps between bricks such as the chimney base were packed with castable along with any joints in the secondary arch. It was then time to get on with cementing the insulation blocks into place. These are ultra low density blocks which are able to take the heat from the fire brick wall as well as offer a good insulatory layer along the sides of the chamber. A bit fiddly on the wall side as it's quite narrow. Having completed that and the cement aloud to cure, the gap between the insulation blocks on the kiln and the yard wall was filled with concrete blocks and old bricks to butress that side of the kiln.

 It was then time to build up the chimney, despite an aptitude for dropping my trowl down it, it went up reasonably quickly, managing to lay about 4 courses each hour which doesn't sound much but there was also a lot of brick moving and cutting of small 1inch bits as spacers, 2 or 3 per course. I still need to add a few more courses, it's standing at about 11.5 feet at the moment and I reckon it needs another foot.

 I also put in a flame viewing hole / passive damper in the front of the chimny, bit of a narrow gap as the main chamber insulation will be built up level with the top of the blow hole pipe. The next major job will be to get the main insulation layer done, this will be a mixture of sand, lime, perlite, sawdust,  straw and cement and lots and lots and lots of shoveling; whooooop.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Unfortunately the weather has finally had a impact on the build. After snow last weekend the yard has been completely frozen up. The insulation blocks for the sides have now arrived and I was hoping to start on the insulation of the arch this week but the old insulation sand and pearlite mix has been frozen solid all week so I'll have to wait until it thaws before that job can be started. Also, the fireclay mortar between the secondary arch bricks is frozen so ramming and filling those gaps again, will have to wait until it defrosts a little. The other outstanding job is taking the chimney out through the roof which again has been put on hold until the ice on the roof has melted. Hopefully the firebricks for the floor, grate and door will be arriving soon so that is another job on the list.

Roll on the spring :-)

Most of the heavy brickwork completed :-)

Well, it's been a very cold week here, the temperature in the yard has not got much above freezing for most of it so loads of clothes have been in order. Having completed all the fire clay filling on the hot face arch, Wednesday was a big day and the former came out. The space looks great and the rest of the day was spent clearing away excess mortar from the internal hot face and mixing up the refractory castable and packing all the supporting gaps inside.

Due to the cold and not wanting to compramise the curing of the castable, all the cast areas had to be covered with fibre and a small heater was put in the kiln over night to stop it all from freezing.

On Thursday and Friday Steve Parry again was over to help with the build of the secondary arch. Great help and much appreciated.

 Despite having to regularly defrost our buckets of mortar we managed at five PM on Friday to knock into place the last key brick. Very satisfying. So, most of the heavy brick work is done. Jobs left to do? Pack any gaps between the secondary arch bricks, complete the chimney, Lay the insulation blocks along the sides, mix and lay the insulation mix on the top, lay the second floor layer and finally sort out and fit the metal bracing on the outside wall. Plenty still left to do but this week was definitely a turning point.

On adifferent note, I'm starting to put together shows and exhibitions for 2012 and these can be seen on my website information page, hope to see you there :-)





It got cold!

Another productive week last week, managed to spend a good couple of days working on the kiln.  Finished off keying in the back of the arch which involved plenty of niggly cutting of bricks in order to get them all tight and supported both in the arch itself and also into the front wall of the chimney.  Once that had been completed, I began building up the chimney. Raising up the collection box at the base several more layers before beginning to corble in to the final dimensions (somewhere there must be a natural law which dictates that the chimney dimensions will never quite match the dimensions of whole bricks, each layer required two small cut sections to be inserted which made each course slow: this is also directly proportional to the number of times the builder will hit their head on the roof :-(  ). I took the chimney up to just below the board which covers the hole in the roof and will leave it there until the rest of the kiln is finished to keep the rain out.

Once  finished, I  addressed finishing the main arch structure. This involves cleaning off all the excess fireclay mortar and ramming the gaps with dry fireclay using a small wooden wedge. This ensures that all the arch bricks are compressed together.  A time consuming and tedious job although very important for the final integrity of the arch, it took me five hours just to do half of one side of the structure.

So, for this week I have to finish ramming the arch and mix up some refactory castable to fill some voids at the base of the chimney as well as around the blow hole tubes in the top of the arch and then the job of laying the secondary arch can begin. Plenty of clothes on as it's set to get even colder. Joy :-)