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Re: Ovens.
>On oven pumping & ovens. You can make a nice oven with a high temp
>insulating material called "FiberFrax". It is synthetic Carborndum
>fiber & is fairly safe although there are some new handling precautions
>when using it. Check in your local phone Company's directory under
>"Refractories" (like for industrial furnaces). A source for elements
>hardware and other bits of fiberfrax kiln/oven knowledge is glass
>artist Dudley Giberson, Joppa Glassworks (603) 456-3569, PO Box 202
>Warner, NH 03278. Drop him a line or give him a call....He's one
>of those priceless people in glass art that shares every shred of knowledge
>he has....Tell him I sent you!....
Also look in the yellow pages under "insulation." Williams insulation
makes a ceramic fiber material that is low cost, and good to 700 deg. C -
more than enough for oven pumping, as well as annealing lead and
borosilicate. It comes in rolls that look just like the pink stuff you put
in your attic, only it's off white. I seem to recall a price of about 60
bucks, for enough 2" material to make a fairly large kiln according to my
plans.
For a kiln "body," I have heard that people have used old refridgerator
shells. Strip out the old urethane insulation, line the body with the
ceramic fiber, and fill the door with vermiculite. The units lays with the
door down, and hinges backwards to expose the bed.
What I want to do (and what's kept me from putting one together thus far)
is to use a gas heating source. Seems feasible to me, and an electric gas
valve is cheaper than an electrical contactor that's rated for what's
needed (50 amps or so). Add to this the cost of electric elements, and the
support system to hold them off the insulation. I thought about making 2
"burners" that ran paralel allong the inside edge of the oven. Holes
drilled in 1/2" steel pipe mabye? Perhaps it's even possible to modify a
furnace control valve to turn on and off with a temperture controllor?
Just some ideas. Sorry for the bad spelling - made 31 channel letters
today, and my brain if fried.
-John