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My Old Salt Kiln


rayaldridge

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I've decided to tear down my old salt kiln, and thought my fellow forumites might find a picture interesting, before she goes.

 

I built this little kiln many years  ago, and fired it a number of times before I decided that in my somewhat upscale neighborhood, sooner or later the neighbors were going to start wondering about those clouds of black smoke and chlorine gas.  This was an oil-fired kiln.  I really like oil as a kiln fuel, because it has a long soft flame, like wood, and one can get similar results without the enormous labor of wood-firing.

 

This little kiln was about as small as was practical.  It set a single stack of 12X24 shelves and was fired by a home-made oil burner-- gravity-fed oil and a squirrel cage blower.  I warmed the kiln initially with a small natural gas burner so as to cut down on the smoking that you get when an oil burner is choked down enough to not blow up the wares. (This was a salt kiln, so I was once-firing the wares.)  I timed my firings so that heavy reduction occurred after midnight, for obvious reasons.

 

I built this kiln of fireplace firebrick, which is not the same dimensions as real firebrick, but it held up pretty well, not spalling excessively.  The arch was cast in place with homemade refractory, and as you can see, it's still solid.  The firebrick was a single skin structure, but I covered it with 4 inches of homemade insulation-- made with sawdust, fireclay, grog and Portland cement.  The weather over the last 15 years has eroded this stuff to some extent.

 

The kiln is a kind of crossdraft.  The burner fired under the floor, up over a bagwall, and back down to a flue on the same side as the burner port.  I picked this configuration because of the power of the oil burner and the small size of the kiln.  If it were directed at a bagwall just inside the burner port, the bagwall would have been subject to very extreme temps, and would not have lasted very long.  By the time it crossed under the floor it had lost enough of its direct power that the firebox (where I salted) is still in decent shape, though had I used it long enough, I'd have had to rebuild it eventually.  I used 6 inch stovepipe for a stack, and had to replace the pipe after a number of firings, but it was still a lot cheaper than a brick stack. Firings were good from the beginning, with kiln temps quite even from top to bottom.  If you have any experience with oil burners, you know how powerful they are, so never any difficulties reaching Cone 8 (I was using the same porcelain body I still use.). 

 

Anyway, that was my old salt kiln.  She's going to be turned into a rocket stove for the cabin up in NY, if all goes well.  If I knew a good way to save the arch, I might try to do so, as this little kiln really was great.  If I were to rebuild her up in the North Country, no one would object to her, as our nearest neighbors are a half mile away.

post-65900-0-69457900-1446142746_thumb.jpg

post-65900-0-69457900-1446142746_thumb.jpg

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