The volcano erupts again!

Another week has passed and I have looked over my results from the last firing. I made some nice pottery last week but didn't tell you much about the bricks. They were bad! Very over fired. I have made some changes and went at it again. My results are much better this week.

I had too coarse a mix of glass fragments in the clay. That made for glass to melt out of the bricks.
That along with placing them stacked ontop of eachother also supporting the weight of the kiln top too much. The heat destroyed them into glued together ckinkers.

I lowered the entry point of the chimney flue and added a metal door to the front of the firebox.

I also took the stacked weight off of the green bricks by putting firebrick support posts inside the heating chamber to hold the kiln rooftop up. The new clay/glass mix is still 50/50, but the glass is tripple sifted to the mesh size of wire window screen.

This is the result of that effort!

My last name is Hendrix, but my wifes family name is Kennedy. So her brother asked me about bricks with their name on them. All the bricks passed the water submersion testing with no ill effects.

First successful pottery made! In the Volcano.

Here you go! Made out of field clay and glass dust.
They all have ring to them and passed the water test.
This is my beginning! Very excited now.

With the help of my kids I now have named this kiln the "Volcano"

Wood Furnace Boiler Heat Update

Ive been doing alot of work on my wood fired heater boiler since last time I posted about it. Here are a few pics of the progress.