Oztrain Kiln: Chamber Construction

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The inner walls of the chamber are constructed from very strangely shaped bricks which were auctioned off when the Mackay brickworks closed down. They are hollow bricks which lock together so that each brick provides a volume of wall  6x10x7.75 ins.  As you can see the wall ended up sloping slightly. Heavy 24x24x1 ins silicon carbide shelves were used to span the top of the chamber. The chamber measures 23 ins high, and 22.5 ins across the top, slightly wider at the bottom. The hollow bricks were filled with ceramic fibre. Because the odd shaped bricks did not mesh with the normal 9x4.5x3 ins firebricks of the rest of the kiln, the chimney, chamber, and firebox  are separate structural entities. To stop them moving apart due to the expansion and contraction when firing and cooling they are tied together with steelwork .


Low quality fire bricks were used for the outer walls of the chamber. The ribbed outside surfaces of the inner walls were filled with ceramic fibre and the outer wall bricks holds this fibre in place. There was no way of tying the inner and outer walls together, so  they might tend to separate in use.

The mortar used for the construction of the inner wall, base of the chimney and the firebox was low iron fireclay and sand. For the outer walls of the chamber the clay used  was simply the clay of the floor of the kiln shed. It is a fireclay with about 8% iron content.

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