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Hard Brick Vs Ifb


jrgpots

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I have found a supply of supper duty hard brick which are 9x6x3 for $0.50 each. I was told they are stable up to 8,000 degree F. So how long would a 12-14 cubic ft made of these hard bricks take to fire and cooldown without IFB lining? How much more gas would it take to fire?

 

If I put IFB liner, should it be 2 1/2 or 4 1/2 inches thick?

 

If I use kaowool for the liner, should I use 1 or 2 inches?

 

Or sould I not bother with the hard brick?

 

Jed

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Hard bricks have their place-bag walls- floor supports- all spans like burner ports and chimneys-any place salt or soda is sprayed on.

You get the picture-yes you will need some no matter what kiln is made.

as far as soft brick liner 4 1/2 inches is what you need forget the 2 1/2 way-

My kiln is 4 1/2 soft 4 1/2 hard on the outside-works great-9 inches thick-heats fast cools slow-just what is needed for good glazes to develop.

Bother with hard brick-every potter need a pile in the yard

Have you missed those signboards ads -(GOT BRICK)

they even have them on the milk containers these days

 

The better question is can you use this ODD size 9x6x3???

This will not work well with any other brick sizes-I would limit my buying them to only floors or chimneys.

You should think about how a normal brick 9x 4.5 2.5 will line up with these and you will see they do not.

Standard bricks are the main ingredients in the recipe for kilns.

 

I have bought odd sizes over the past 42 years-my 1st batch was two or three pallets of 9 inch hard arch brick the 9 inch was the taper. I had them a few years and sold them all at a profit as I could not use them.

I have some super duty high alumina strange size ones now just for my salt kiln bag wall.

I have had many 12x 12 of various thinkness I have used as floors. My clay staorage shed pallets sit on some now as supports.

One thing I can tell you is with unusuall sized brich you need to have a use for them as they usually do not fit in unless you have a plan.

A kiln chimmey is just such a plan as it can all be made out of them except the damper slot.

Olsen's kiln book shows bricks well so you can visualize these odd ball bricks.

The odd inch thickness makes them much harder to fit into any wall size with standard soft bricks

Mark

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Guest JBaymore

There is the 3" series of "standard" bricks.  9 x 4.5 x 3   Cuts down on brick joints per square foot of wall surface. So the odd shapes could get used.  But the 3" thick brick is harder to find from any but true refratory suppliers.

 

Let's forget the thermal gradient thru a wall section and aspects of resitance to energy flow for simplicty.  Let's assume that you will bring the whole brick to the temperature of the load in a firing.  A "standard" sizedf IFB weighs about 3 pounds.  The same size hard brick weighs about 8 pounds.  In one case you are bringing up 3 pounds of clay to the desired firing temperature... in the other.... 8 pounds.

 

It is actually more complicated than this... but you get the idea.

 

best,

 

.............john

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Yes floors are a great use better get more than you think you need at .50Cents

At that price you could also use them to raise up the wholekiln to a better working level as well.

I have some large piles of 9x 4.5 x 3 as John spoke about-mine are angled on sides to form a 30 foot circle for a rotatoing lime kiln from a pulp mill-price was free.These are hard to use as well as one edge is rough from lime use. They made great pavers around salt kiln. I also made a chimney out of them once.Yours will be a bit more usefull as they have all good sides.

Mark

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