The kiln under construction. This photo is a record of the planning stage, and not all of the bricks shown are in the correct positions.
|
|
The kiln under construction. This photo is a record of the planning stage, and not all of the bricks shown are in the correct positions. |
|
The gaps marked 1 were a tentative layout of extra air ports at the base of the right firebox, and did make it into the final kiln (in both fireboxes) but are not shown on the plans. These ports are very occasionally used for stirring the embers, and once, shamefully, to remove embers. Carol likes to mess about with the ones at the chimney side, but I am inclined to think this is unnecessary. If you have to remove embers then you are not managing the fireboxes properly. However, if you fire this kiln and are new to firing with wood you probably will mis-manage the fireboxes at first, so these apertures might be a good idea.
|
|
The brick marked 6 is where the mousehole for that firebox should be. The wall between the fireboxes is marked 3.The chimney layout 2 is for the top of the chimney. The bricks 5 are just there for the moment to hold up the planned corbel arch 4. There are four of these corbel arches leading from the fireboxes into the bagwall areas.
Why use corbel arches instead of braced arches? There is no compelling reasons to choose corbels, but a number of minor reasons. Firstly, throat arches in salt kilns tend to collapse if the salt is introduced near them, and for some good reasons that is where we like to introduce the salt. I thought corbel arches would be easier to repair. Secondly, if a braced arch was built here it would be difficult to brace during the construction of the kiln, although it could have been braced at the end of construction. Thirdly, I had only a few arch bricks of the right sort of shape and I needed them for the firebox doors. Fourthly, I had a number of silicon carbide bricks garnered when the local sugar mill was demolished, and I did not know where else to use them. They conduct heat readily, so are no use on the outside wall, and this seemed a good place to put them, as they are relatively resistant to heavy salting. They could not be shaped, so could not be turned into arch bricks.
