Has Anyone Used Ground Up Old Insulating Fire Brick In A Castable?

[jrgpots]

I had a bunch of broken IFB, so I ball milled them. I now have about 25 gallons of IFB powder. What would it take to use this in a refractory castable?

 

Jed

[Marcia Selsor]

I have added bits of IFB to castable. Didn't ball mill which is even better. Consider it grog.

Marcia

[jrgpots]

I have your recipes for castable in a file. I will use it as grog as asked for in one of the recipes..

 

Thank you,

 

Jed

[Pres]

We used it at Penn State to cast a raku kiln back in the 70's. This during a Summer with David Don Tigny I believe. our IFB was crushed from an old electric kiln that had been donated. It was a long time ago, but I do remember the crushed bits going into the mix.

 

 

best,

Pres

[anchorman]

I don't bother crushing IFB up very small, depending on what I'm using the castable for.  you can even leave large chunks over 1" in there with no problems that I've noticed.  I made a castable mix using fire clay, sand, broken/mildly pulverized IFB, sawdust, and about 10% portland cement for insulating above the arch of our soda kiln.  If I could have gotten it, my understanding is that calcium alumina cement holds up to heat better than portland cement.  I used a bit of sodium silicate in the mix to make if flow a bit better without adding quite so much water.  It insulates, and has held up well enough, despite not being properly fired all the way through.  perhaps one could do better, but this did the job for us.  I can dig up the exact recipe used if there is interest.