I seem to have fired this clay at too high of a temperature and it melted onto the wall of my kiln. Ugh. Any special way to get this out without destroying my furnace? Maybe reheat it to 2150 like I had it and when it softens pull it out? And assuming I do destroy one or two walls of it where can I buy insulating firebrick from to replace the damaged parts? The kiln is rated for 2400F
The pottery supply place around the corner from my work sells IFB's individually or by the case. Maybe there's a place like that near you? Jeff
Maybe use a 9 inch diamond coated concrete blade in an angle grinder to slice it up and break out tiny pieces.
How the hell did you do that one? I'm with mark, carefulling break that thing outta there. Maybe you'll only end up buying a coil.
I might try disassembling it all and see if I can chip off the pot and then cut out the rest of it with diamond. Hopefully it doesn't destroy the delicate fins that hold the coil. I also hope the coil wasn't stuck to with clay. Haha yeah, Jason I made some pots with the girlfriend at a ceramic place up in CT then took home the pots and fired them myself. I guestimated the temperature wrong. I have another clay that fires at cone 05 which is 2150 ish so I assumed this would be similar. Unfortunately it was a lower fire clay. Maybe 1800 by the looks of it..? Which is unusual because most clays fire well above 2150F. I just had to luck out. I might try heating it back up again maybe to 2300 F for a short while and seeing if I can pull it off the wall when its hot and goopy instead of chipping it off. It is stuck in there pretty well, I pulled on it about 15 lbs of force and it didn't wiggle.
Got the pot out and everything turned out peachy keen... Going to need some advice on replacing the coil as soon as I'm done taking it all apart. Not sure what kind it needs or how to go about ordering a new one.
Yeah I don't see info on the coil on the kiln. It's ruined. Any idea how to replace it? What is this clay chimney part? I cracked it. It would be nice to replace. Any suggestion how to cut the slots for the coils to sit in? They seem hollowed out somehow. Might be easier to buy high temp cement and glue it back together than recut it all?
Ha I found the element info. Yeah may be a good idea to glue it. Ugh seems like a shame. How do I figure out what element to buy with this?
Zap, is it just one coil (likely)? Also, why do you think it needs to be replaced? Is it broken? If it is merely bent or has some clay stuck to it, straighten it out and stuff it back in it's groove. If it is just one coil, ohm's law applies; voltage = current x resistance. You need a coil that has 10 ohms of resistance that is about the same wound diameter and gauge wire. You can buy it on eBay (1440w @ 120 volts or 10 ohms) or wind your own. I can help with the latter. Buy some mortar and glue the pieces back in place. It's just IFB. Buy a 2600F insulating fire brick and cut/file new pieces for the ones that aren't salvageable......put humpty-dumpty back together again. Best, Kelly
The element isn't broken but it was stuck to pretty good by the clay. Won't that corrode it over time because of the clay? Especially if I go up to max temperature. Might as well put in a new element while I'm redoing it right? Or am I over complicating this. I think its actually 2 elements, so I'm guessing they are 720 w each? Been searching ebay for the past hour now, I'm finding it tough to find element options. I remember there used to be several custom element makers on ebay but they don't seem to be there now. I guess making my own would be a decent idea. The coils are 10 mm (0.4") OD, and the wire is 1.5 mm (0.06") thick. I don't know the exact length because its all bent at 90 degree angles.
One or two elements is an important question to answer....and are they wired in series or parallel? I'd be sort of surprised if there was more than one coil but maybe so. When you are looking at the foreign sourced coils on eBay, most wattages are rated at 220/240vac. That power will be 4x of what you will get at 120vac. Besides the coil diameter, you also need to look at the close wound length. Coils should be stretch 3x to 5x their close wound length to get enough spacing between coils so they wont overheat, so you will need to measure the length of the groove in your kiln and compare. Best, Kelly
My furnace is 120v, how do I know the length without uncoiling it completely? The length of the groove? I can measure it more accurately but its about 6x-5x-5x inches on each side. So that's 75-90 inches in length? Do I need kanthal wire? https://www.ebay.com/itm/TEMCo-Kant...h=item41d7282f20:g:9cIAAOSwZW5aPY3x:rk:2:pf:0
Kelly had a nice writeup on his furnace build thread about making a coil. He made his. I'm with him, use it until it needs to be replaced. His advice was not given lightly. Mortar the big pieces back in, don't sweat the chimney crack. The brick just need to keep the coil from wandering into the furnace cavity so little gaps are OK. In repairing kilns sometimes a little nichrome wire is used to pin the coil into the brick to keep it from jumping out when hot.
Might be a good idea to try mortar it back together. I got some cement and fire brick as well in case the mortar won't hold it strongly enough (or if my OCD gets the better of me). I don't know which thread that is, but I'll try looking it up. I'll use the current element for as long as I can, but I'd like to buy and coil the wire from now so its ready when the current coil breaks. Do you think I should use nichrome or kanthal? I don't know which type my element was made of originally. I think I need Kanthal wire which is 2552F operating temp, compared with 2100F max for nichrome I pretty comfortable coiling wire (I used to make a lot of it for chain mail back in college). I'll just stretch it out until the gaps are roughly the same as the current wire.
