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Coating For High Fire Surfaces


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Repair or used for protecting in high heat locations on soft or hard brick or fiber (use thinned on fiber)

 

I posted this recipe a few years back but the liquid Coloidal Silica was hard to find for most.

I found a good source for it here in gallons.(I have no affialation-but have been a long time patron-west coast based in Portland,Or)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Refractory-coating-Rigidizer-for-Ceramic-Fiber-Blanket-/141651507714

 

The mixture is made up of Coloidal Silica (from high- temp) and milled zircon-I get mine from Laguna/axner.

You put a small amount of the liquid silica in a disposable container and add milled Zircon untill the consistency of thin cream-you can brush roll or spray this.It will not brush well onto dry surfaces so spray them with a mister first.

The liquid will absorb a large amount of milled Zircon so have plenty.

Make small batches untill you learn how to mix it.

Keep in mine to take precuations as you will need a mask and gloves.

The mixure works best on slightly damp surfaces (except for hard brick). Thinner coatings work best-it air dries well and will go off so do not leave the container open to air.

I have used this for many years in fire boxes on hard and soft brick-it does not get affected by flame or heat.I like it in fireboxes.

Just a side note as the formula has silica in it it does not work well in salt where salt attacks it.

It coats fiber very well-it will add a hard skin to fiber so keep it thinner during application as if it gets thick it will fall off as it will have its own weight.

I orginally got this from a glass blower who rigidzed his fiber in glory holes for glass blowing.

Mark

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Mark,

 

Thanks for your recipe and advice.  I've done some research on this topic and found a few home brew ideas and recipes.  Here's a couple of links with some different recipes and information for those who might be interested in this topic.

 

John Britt posting Tony Clennell's recipe which was posted on Clayart:  http://ncclayclub.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-potters-itc-recipe.html

 

Bill Amsterlaw's thoughts on kiln wash and refractories:  http://amsterlaw.blogspot.com/2010/07/soda-kiln-wash-wadding.html

 

Some of the iron forging folks' opinions on the matter:  http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/34678-gas-forge-advice-kaowool-castable-refractory/

 

My thoughts:  After spending a quite a few hours just researching, reading and learning about refractory coatings and ITC-100 and it's imitations/facsimiles,  there appear to be a few homemade coatings that will function similarly as ITC, but as always testing is required.  For my application where I'm using kaowool to basically rebuild the bottom most element groove (the kiln was moved without its bottom at some point and the bottom row of bricks was damaged, mostly the element grooved sections were broken off) I think that I'll stick to Mark's suggestion that I go with just the bare blanket and at some point in the future I give it a coat of ITC-100.  From everything I've read, ITC is okay to spray directly on the elements or have the elements make direct contact with whereas some of the home made coatings may or may not be safe for direct contact with elements.

 

I'm going to mix up a few of the recipes above and coat left over kaowool and scrap soft brick pieces and fire them for the next few firings I do.  At least I'll be able to see how the different recipes perform for multiple firings without permanently altering my kiln with something I don't want on there.

 

Thanks again for the info.

 

Rob 

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Mark, this is a bit off-topic, but did I understand you to say (in another thread) that you had a fiber salt kiln?

 

I'd always had the impression that salt would eat up fiber, but if that's not so, it's good news.  My last salt kiln was hard brick and oil-fired, but if I could build a little fiber salt kiln, I probably would.

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Mark, this is a bit off-topic, but did I understand you to say (in another thread) that you had a fiber salt kiln?

 

I'd always had the impression that salt would eat up fiber, but if that's not so, it's good news.  My last salt kiln was hard brick and oil-fired, but if I could build a little fiber salt kiln, I probably would.

Yes I have a salt kiln with fiber roof and door

and yes salt will eat up fiber-so you have to coat it-it requires maintenance and cannot tolerate direct salt spray.

I spray my salt in diluted with hot water. The kiln is a high tec mix of materials some hard brick some soft brick and some fiber.

it fires fast and is very cost effectiveI have a detail post on this kiln back a few years if you search for it.

You will never now the limits unless you test them-in this case I did just that.I learned a lot and wish I used a few more hard brick in my spray area but so far its working great.

 

Mark

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Thanks, Mark, I'll try to find the thread.  What sort of coating do you use to maintain the fiber?

For the 1st few years I used ITC which works fine-then testing over time I made my own-which I'd rather keep to myself as some day I may market it. You can develop your own it just takes lots of work in testing.

Mark

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A friend of mine developed a salt kiln wash when I was in grad school that had colloidal silica, zircon flour, VeeGumT, and some other stuff. It worked great. We used to make our salt wads out of zircon sand and zircon flour. They just fell off after the firing, and were super heavy, like big BB's.

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