It may be Fall, but its Sprung!

The last couple of days have been long anticipated. The burner supports were fabricated by my friend Steve and I installed them. The burners are waiting now for Middle Tennessee Natural Gas to come set the meter and pipe them. The engineer called to size the meter, so I know I am in the queue.



After all the worrying, fussing and general just plain thinking about it, it took less than two hours to set the support form, add the bricks and then remove the support.



So here is the arch in-place.



If I am not careful, I might actually have a kiln soon and get back to making pots instead of kilns.

Don't pay the ransom!

I have escaped from the kidnappers! Okay, maybe I wasn't kidnapped. I just haven't been posting.

First, congratulations to "Hoosier Mama" and her first firing of her new salt kiln. It was also her first firing of a gas kiln! Way to go - be sure to check out her blog Hoosier Mama Now to see her results

Despite the lack of posts, progress is being made and I am getting a hazy view of the end. I completed the arch support and my friend Steve took my drawings and fabricated the kiln's steel work.

The arch support is rather simple construction, just some OSB and 2x4 cross members.



I found some fiberboard at Loews that was $7 for a 4'x8' sheet.



I clamped it on, traced the shape and cut it with my trusty jig saw.



This is the finished support ready to put in the kiln.



Here is the steel work fitted onto the kiln.



This is an outside view of the arch constraints.



And here is an end view of the skew bricks, the backing bricks and the steel constraints.



Steve also did a great job of fabricating the burner supports. I will install these and post pictures as soon as its stops raining.

Passive Damper and Arch Support

This week has slipped by and it seems like I have been a slacker. I guess I am slowing down as I approach the 60 years on this planet milestone. It may be just the age or it may be that the city frenzies are fading into the past. I did get a bunch of bowls glazed and fired for the Cookeville Cooking on the Square event. This benefits Habitat for Humanity. Below are the hand built bowls that I whined about not caring for earlier. I still am not fond of them, but the glazing almost saved them. They were fired in oxidation to cone 7 with a Mid-South Opulence glaze called antique iron.



I have brought the chimney up and constructed the passive damper. This is basically a hole to open to decrease the "draw" up the chimney. It is used to make small adjustments as compared to the active damper. The next task on the stack is to cut a hole in the roof and continue up to its full height.



I started the arch support for springing the arch into place. Below you can see it laid out on OSB.



I traced the curve onto the OSB and then used a compass to offset the curve by the thickness of the plywood that I will use to cover the support.



Here are the support ends cut out by my trusty-rusty Sears jig saw. This was my father's. He had it a few years and I have had it about 20 years. Still going strong (but I have my eye on a DeWalt 18v cordless).



Steve, who is going to do the metal work for me, called and if things go as planned, that should get done next weekend.

Active Damper

I built the damper yesterday. After a lot of back and forth in my mind about how to do it, I settled on slicing the brick lengthwise and using a piece of angle iron. The pictures pretty much tell the story.









I am using Alsey Motar on the chimney to better seal it and hopeful promote a good draw. I will go another few layers with the high duty bricks and then change over to the medium duty to complete. I also intend to add at least one passive damper.