| Oztrain Kiln: Chamber ConstructionSideStoke home | Oztrain home | Construction home |
 | 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. |