| Oztrain Kiln: InsulationSideStoke home | Oztrain home | Construction home |
 | Silicon carbide kiln shelves conduct heat readily, which is good when they are acting as shelves but bad when they are used as the roof of a kiln chamber. For the first firing, loose 3x2ft pieces of ceramic fibre blanket was put on top of the kiln shelves to a thickness of 4 inches. They glowed rather alarmingly when the kiln was hot, and loose fibre is never nice to handle. We have since constructed two partial insulation panels, of the same low temperature insulating fibre, 6 inches thick, attached by means of ceramic buttons to pieces of weldmesh. |
| The shiny material in the photo is aluminium foil, which is easily perforated but is strong enough to reduce the tendency of the fibre to shed small bits of possibly health-threatening fibre. In the background a second module is under construction,waiting for the ceramic buttons to be inserted and attached to the weldmesh with stainless steel filler rod.The ceramic buttons used for the 6 inch thickness of fibre were bigger than the ones used in the firebox lid, and it was necessary to cut out a plug of fibre to receive each one. The hole-cutter was made from a short length of one inch diameter steel pipe, "sharpened" at one end so it could be used to cut into the fibre with a screwing action. |
 | The
finished insultion module. This fibre would tend to stick to the
silicon carbide roof shelves so a layer of aluminium foil will be
placed on the kiln shelves to minimize this. The fibre will stiffen
when fired so it might be possible to use a zircon coating paste in
subsequent firings. |