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HI FlorianFrankenstein Well done on the homebuilt kiln. One of the regulars on the board said to me 'it's a box that gets hot....' - and that just about sums it up. Don't like paying over the odds for things that I can make myself <g> Understand about the Pi - it's true that the more you ask somethi...

HI Kevin All good points - 'the devil you know' and all that.. Understand about the potential value of a kiln-full of glass - though I must confess that my own kilnwork is rather more modest, and, if I'm honest, there's a certain amount of interest in the 'can I do it myself?' aspect. This particula...

HI FlorianFrankenstein. Thanks for the comments - curious to know about you finding the Pi's unstable? Can you tell me any more? I guess - being a 'doing several things at the same time' kind of device - there's always the potential for problems. Drawing on my past experience in automation (and a ce...

HI Dana Yes - that's another way of doing it.. There's a pc in the workshop (mostly used as an MP3 player!) - so that could easily have a webcam connected to it - but I was looking to have the ability to actually 'control' the kiln remotely.. As you'll see from my reply to Kevin, I may have found a ...

HI Kevin. Ah - sorry - missed that! Actually, I did come across the following site https://apollo.open-resource.org/mission:resources:picoreflow which contains hardware details and freeely-downloadable software to run a Raspberry Pi as a temperature controller, lan-accessible, with a graphical displ...

HI Kevin Thanks for the replies. As it happens, I have two Raspberry Pi 3's sitting on my desk at the moment... Plan A was to hook one of them up to the spare thermocouple in my kiln, and use it as a remote monitor (via wifi) of what the kiln was up to. Ideally, this would include a graphical output...

HI Folks I was looking at buying a spare 3-key controller for my home-built fibre kiln (single thermouple - single 7.5kw element). Skutt seemed to want silly money for the one that comes with their Hotstart kilns (which is the controller I'm using at the moment) - so I started looking at the new tou...

Rick Wilton wrote:Insulated fire brick.

The type of bricks used in most ceramics kilns. I have a lot of them kicking around so that's what I used.

Ah - thanks! Google had lots of suggestions but not that looked likely <g>

A

HI Rick
Thanks for the flashlight tip - I'll remember that.
OK on the 6 x 4 - that's the lines I was thinking along.
What's an IFB?
Thanks
A

One suggestion, whatever you use: Remember that it can be very dark inside a kiln. ;-) Only half joking. I have a nice big quartz window in my new fiber kiln and I love it...as long as the kiln is actively firing. That way the elements illuminate the interior. When the kiln has gone into the downra...

I have built two separate types, on is a bell kiln and other is hinged like yours. The only difference is that the majority of the sides stay on the base and only the top few inches are hinged. (Your design is better) I would still cut a hole into it if that was mine as the ability to peek is inval...

nice! I wouldn't cut holes in it, maybe your next one... <grin> - Thanks Marty I'm not planning on there being a 'next one'.... think this'll do me for a while! But - I could fit a 'suitable' glass window, without cutting anything more structural than the fibre blanket.... perhaps... The plan in bu...

What Bert said..... The two homemade kilns I built I cut a hole and placed a insulated fire brick into the hole. I mounted a handle onto the brick to make removal quick and easy. It works great. The one kiln was made from expanded metal (sounds like yours) and the other was made from rectangular st...

Adrian- Now you have to post photos! You said clamshell- lifting the top a little to peek won't lose much heat... HI Marty Don't know if this'll work...? <edit - looks like it did!> 2014_04230005.jpg 2014_04280004.jpg 2014_04280001.jpg Shows the general look of the kin. There's a pulley & count...

Just cut a hole and slip in something like a brick, or a wad of fiber blanket. Pull the plug out and look in. 2" of fiber blanket is under insulated. It must run hot to the touch. It will work though. Hi Bert. That'd involve cutting through the (rather heavy) metal mesh..... From inside to out...

HI Brad Thanks for the comments. I'll double-check, but I remember that one piece of the glass refused to budge when I tried slumping it - and I went up to 800c (1482f) before I gave up! I guess if I was to try fusing a piece, and take it up to 850c or thereabouts - if it survived that then would yo...

HI Folks With help from some of the regulars here, I made myself a homebuilt fibre kiln a couple of years ago. It's a clamshell construction, 4ft x 2ft x 12 inches, with two overlapped layers of 1" fibre blanket in the lid. The outer frame of the kiln is angle iron with metal mesh. All good - s...

HI Folks Thanks for all the comments... I've failed to get the stuff to bend, despite having taken it up to 880c (in my homebuilt kiln, waterglass slumps at 680c and float slumps at 780). I didn't want to go any higher, for fear of upsetting my new kiln... Schott (the manufacturers of the Robax glas...

HI Alexis Thanks for your reply. Yes - I did contact them - but they've not replied yet. I've been running some test - and managed to get the beginnings of a slump (perhaps a few millimetres across an 8-inch length) firing at 880c for 15 minutes - don;t really want to go much hotter than that with m...

HI Folks I've been asked to look at 'bending' some Robax heat-resistant glass over a (probably stainless-steel') former. This is the stuff http://www.us.schott.com/hometech/english/products/robax/ Anybody know anything about this material ? - it's claimed to be "an extremely heat-resistant, tra...