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How are folks using the vermiculite board?
kiln washing it?
I have been thinking about using pieces of the board to assemble pieces that I can carry to my shelf and setting the board on my shelf (less heavy, less cumbersome, less likely to be jostled and easier to load into my kiln). Any of you doing that?

I just can't see myself bending into my kiln to assemble a strip cut piece. My back would not thank me the next day.

curious girl

Not sure how big or heavy your pieces are Barbara, but my experience with vermiculite is that it's too delicate for much handling. The one inch board I have is very friable, and would be useless for transport to and from the kiln. Perhaps there are better grades than what I got years ago. My favorite for transporting pieces is stainless. I wash however big a piece I need, lay hi fire on top of it, assemble the piece, and slip it in the kiln. I have also used cardboard with hi fire on top, then slip the cardboard out. Of course if the piece is really big and heavy, the cardboard won't do it.

Hi Barbara,
I have some pretty thick board that Marty uses for his lay ups and so have I ( 1 at least!) It is about 3", not that light, but great when you can not spend hours hunched over your kiln, I for onecouldn;t do it either
Jeri

Jeri Dantzig wrote:Hi Barbara,
I have some pretty thick board that Marty uses for his lay ups and so have I ( 1 at least!) It is about 3", not that light, but great when you can not spend hours hunched over your kiln, I for onecouldn;t do it either
Jeri

Jeri, do you put it on your kiln shelf when you fire, do you put it on kilnposts (I'd be afraid of warping), or directly on the kiln floor (mine is brick)

Thanks Jeri.

Barbara

Barbara- The stuff is 2" thick. I set up on it outside the kiln and then put it right on the kiln floor- no shelf, no posts, no warping, just genuine cheatin' technology (tm). I cut the boards down to frequently-used sizes.
Marty

So the ultimate question is. Can it be shelf or not to shelf? It seems that we are using it to fuse on so is there any problem just lining the bottom of the kiln with this stuff.
Marty, weren't you thinking of building a kiln out of the board?

Inquiring jeri wants to know

There has been some discussion about using the stuff as back-up insulation.

And as far as I'm concerned, verm. board IS the shelf.

Thin-fire? Thin fiberpaper?

Ix-nay on the in-thay iberpaper-fay.

1/32" thick fiberpaper.

Marty wrote:Ix-nay on the in-thay iberpaper-fay.

1/32" thick fiberpaper.

Hey Marty, have you tried using thinfire on it? I just got 3 boards from Brad and don't have the skinny fiber paper. Is there some reason not to use thinfire? Don't want to ruin my new kiln shelves....

Lisa

Lisa- you won't ruin the shelves. I just don't like using thinfire. Marty