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I'm at the point now where I'm going to cut some bricks for my oven. Just thought I'd lay out my plan here in case anyone wanted to share some ideas.
First step was to see if I could cut the bricks easily. Turns out a carbide blade does the job so easily that at first I thought something was wrong- I couldn't even hear the blade cutting as I pushed the brick through. It does an absolutely beautiful cut. So- where I'm at now- because most of my bricks have angled ends so they would fit around in a circular pattern, I'm thinking to make an arched top on this thing- kind of like a quanset hut. I will have to change the angle, making it steeper so three bricks can come together in an arc before setting down on top of the walls. This means the top brick on the walls will also be angled to suit. Because of the arched top I'll make the walls a little less high than I might have otherwise.
The rest of the structure will be assembled with rectangular bricks. Once I prep the bricks for the roof and walls, I'll have a dimension for the width and length of the oven. I plan to cut pieces of cement board for the bottom, sides, and back, probably gluing the corners together with Sika Anchorfix. One of my motivations for this is that I also plan to use that to fasten my granite pieces together for another project- might as well glue it all up at once so I can get the most out of the epoxy before wasting the opened tube. Anyway, I also want to 'beef up' the front of the oven and the door so the brick material doesn't crumble away too quickly with repeated opening and closing of the door. I thought to use the cement board on the front and door as well, but insetting it into the brick, leaving a half inch or so of brick around the opening. The remaining brick edges will still be vulnerable, but the facing where the door closes will not be brick on brick, it will be cement board on cement board.
I plan a lift-up door like a commercial dish washer, so as you open it, the door swings outwards slightly as it rises. Pretty sure I can rig up a spring on each side so the door will stay upwards when open, and also spring closed to some degree when it's closed.
The whole structure will be wrapped in aluminum once assembled, since I still have the original aluminum wrapping that was on the kiln I got the bricks from.
The bricks almost all have a channel where the heating elements lay. For a more even heating, I'd like to pass some of the element across the ceiling- most of it will lay in the floor and walls. Going across the ceiling is going to require some means of holding it in the channel. Perhaps I could arrange to terminate the ends of the heating elements in the ceiling so it can be held by its own wire, and perhaps also I can just use some other pieces of element wire to support it.
I mentioned some time ago that I would put a slab of stainless steel in the bottom as a floor and as a heat moderator. Because the brick itself is so light it won't hold much heat, so I thought this would be a good idea.
I don't know how hot the outside will get with extended operation, so I might re-think the idea of putting the pyrometer directly onto the structure itself. I do want to keep this all together as one piece, so it would be nice if the only 'loose' piece was the power cord. I want to mount the meter and controls on the back piece facing forwards (the back cement board would extend upwards enough to handle this) so it's all one unit. I'm hoping that with the aluminum wrapping the outside temperature will remain touchable- or I isolate the control area with its own wrapping- a separate heat sink as it were. With an aluminum cover over the back of the back board, I should be able to keep that area cool enough.
Enough for now. I'm going to load up my bricks and go cut them to suit. When it comes to assembly- well I wish that AnchorFix was not so fast-acting so I wouldn't have to rush it. In some ways it's a blessing, but otherwise- the tube does come with two mixing nozzles, so at least I can divide the work into two stages.
First step was to see if I could cut the bricks easily. Turns out a carbide blade does the job so easily that at first I thought something was wrong- I couldn't even hear the blade cutting as I pushed the brick through. It does an absolutely beautiful cut. So- where I'm at now- because most of my bricks have angled ends so they would fit around in a circular pattern, I'm thinking to make an arched top on this thing- kind of like a quanset hut. I will have to change the angle, making it steeper so three bricks can come together in an arc before setting down on top of the walls. This means the top brick on the walls will also be angled to suit. Because of the arched top I'll make the walls a little less high than I might have otherwise.
The rest of the structure will be assembled with rectangular bricks. Once I prep the bricks for the roof and walls, I'll have a dimension for the width and length of the oven. I plan to cut pieces of cement board for the bottom, sides, and back, probably gluing the corners together with Sika Anchorfix. One of my motivations for this is that I also plan to use that to fasten my granite pieces together for another project- might as well glue it all up at once so I can get the most out of the epoxy before wasting the opened tube. Anyway, I also want to 'beef up' the front of the oven and the door so the brick material doesn't crumble away too quickly with repeated opening and closing of the door. I thought to use the cement board on the front and door as well, but insetting it into the brick, leaving a half inch or so of brick around the opening. The remaining brick edges will still be vulnerable, but the facing where the door closes will not be brick on brick, it will be cement board on cement board.
I plan a lift-up door like a commercial dish washer, so as you open it, the door swings outwards slightly as it rises. Pretty sure I can rig up a spring on each side so the door will stay upwards when open, and also spring closed to some degree when it's closed.
The whole structure will be wrapped in aluminum once assembled, since I still have the original aluminum wrapping that was on the kiln I got the bricks from.
The bricks almost all have a channel where the heating elements lay. For a more even heating, I'd like to pass some of the element across the ceiling- most of it will lay in the floor and walls. Going across the ceiling is going to require some means of holding it in the channel. Perhaps I could arrange to terminate the ends of the heating elements in the ceiling so it can be held by its own wire, and perhaps also I can just use some other pieces of element wire to support it.
I mentioned some time ago that I would put a slab of stainless steel in the bottom as a floor and as a heat moderator. Because the brick itself is so light it won't hold much heat, so I thought this would be a good idea.
I don't know how hot the outside will get with extended operation, so I might re-think the idea of putting the pyrometer directly onto the structure itself. I do want to keep this all together as one piece, so it would be nice if the only 'loose' piece was the power cord. I want to mount the meter and controls on the back piece facing forwards (the back cement board would extend upwards enough to handle this) so it's all one unit. I'm hoping that with the aluminum wrapping the outside temperature will remain touchable- or I isolate the control area with its own wrapping- a separate heat sink as it were. With an aluminum cover over the back of the back board, I should be able to keep that area cool enough.
Enough for now. I'm going to load up my bricks and go cut them to suit. When it comes to assembly- well I wish that AnchorFix was not so fast-acting so I wouldn't have to rush it. In some ways it's a blessing, but otherwise- the tube does come with two mixing nozzles, so at least I can divide the work into two stages.
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