Clay melted into my kiln...

You guys are geniuses. Seriously never fail to amaze me with the knowledge base on this site. I wish I knew half of the things people on this site know it would make my life a million times easier. Thanks again. I got two keyhole router bits. I think they should do what I need in one pass. I'll return the other router bit set I got from home depot. Or maybe put that return towards buying a router... I was planning on using my drill press and guiding the brick through by hand, but it may not revolve fast enough to make it work?

I have a good respirator for cutting the bricks. I may also wet the brick to cut down the dust.

Now the last problem is how to cut a good radius on the brick to do the curved part? I wonder if I could free hand that? Or would I need a guide to avoid cracking the brick?

 

If you use the drill press you'll have to find a way of locking out the quill/column or the bit could drag down into the work. If anything grabs you could end up juggling a big block attached to the drill, I would prefer to use a router by hand but I've never cut those bricks so maybe someone else has better feel for it. I have done silly things with a drill press out of necessity (desperation) and I always made sure there was a little slack in belts so I could hold the impending disaster in place and reach for the kill switch when the inevitable happened!

 

As easy as brick cuts I think I would prefer the drill press. They all have a quill lock.

 

I'm close to finished repairing my kiln.

I cut slots into a piece of fire brick using my drill press a piece of wood as a guide and a carbide router cutting bit. I have more router bits coming in the mail to do the under cut but because of corona virus they are only going to arrive after wednesday.

I may end up using a hack saw blade to make an undercut at the bottom of the channel to seat the element.

I also have a creative idea to save myself from making a hard replacement part. I'll show pics of that later.

Old brick on left new on right. It needs an undercut at the bottom of the channel to be completed

 

Shouldn't YOU be working?
On people???

 

I took 2 comp days today and tomorrow that they owed me for working xmas and new year. Been too busy lately need a break haha.

Next week I start on a new rotation for a month with the pulmonary (lung) docs. Then after that I'm doing a month in the intensive care unit. So basically I'm Effed. Gonna get corona virus for sure specially since we are running out of masks.

 

Take your D vitamin and start over dosing on C!!!

 

Parts are cut out and ready to install,took me a couple hours to setup the rill press guide at the right spot but I'm fairly happy with the outcome. Now I need to figure out how all these bridges is fit back inside the kiln... haha. And see if my hand made coil works as intended.

 

Now how you going to attach that? My kiln uses bent wire pushed in.

 

You mean like this? Anyone needing a laugh should watch this..

 

I reassembled it.

Seems to turn on and I saw smoke rising out of the chamber as the new brick and elements started heating up and burning off volatiles. I'll have to run it outside for a longer stint and properly degas it.

I may go back and replace the cracked top brick and the bricks in the door later. For now they don't impede function and it's an irritation to fix.

For now it appears to be functional again. More jewelry projects to come...

 

Brought it up to 400F for a couple of hours today to drive out all the moisture. Seems to handle just fine. Back to what it was before. I'll take it up to 2000 later this week, maybe tomorrow to fully cure the bricks and drive out any remaining moisture.

 

I set it at 2150f but it seemed to hover at 2074f for a very long time. Odd. It didn't seem to reach the goal 2150.

I set it to 2300f now to see if it can physically go higher.

Wondering if it is just taking its sweet time to get there or if I made a mistake with element length...? What do you think?

Looks ok otherwise.

 

Yeah the kiln capped out at 2088F even when set to 2300F for an hour.

Does this mean I cut the element length too short?

 

no.. it's too long. Shorter equals lower resistance and hotter. Longer is higher resistance and colder. There is still hope for you.

 

Hmm. I think I need some guidance then. Looking back at earlier posts I made the assumption that the original elements were made of kanthal wire so I chose the same diameter wire and cut a length of wire according to the calculation of the max watts the kiln can draw divided by the number of watts per foot of wire. But I am fairly certain that the new element is shorter than the original element which probably means it's not made from the same material. The max rated temperature of the kiln was advertised at 2300F

I don't mind buying a new type of wire that matches the original wire type. Any ideas on what that wire might be made of?

Alternatively some help figuring out which thickness kanthal wire so the length is longer than it is now and the heat is higher?

If I reduce the length of the current element it probably won't fit correctly.

 

Hey Zap, I do know there is a small difference between kanthal and say Nicrome wire. There is even different flavors of each all with different resistance values. It doesn't make much difference in a vape, but when you have 6miles in a kiln, it will show up.