Wood Kiln

The wood kiln is nearing completion. It is looking pretty good and I'm pretty happy about it so far. Here are a few random thoughts about the kiln building process to date.

Plans are good but don't count on following them to "the letter." It ain't gonna happen. My original plans that I drew up don't look like this kiln at all, except that it is 8 feet long and the walls are about 24 inches tall.

Fire bricks are not the same size. They might look like it and might stack nicely on pallets but they definately aint the same size.

Assume from the beginning of the project that you're going to be a brick short. That goes for mortar too. If you're cutting brick, you're going to cut a bunch of them wrong. In fact, just think that you don't have enough of everything on the purchase list to complete the project.

The next step for this project is to purchase some insulating material for the arch and the sides of the kiln. I am thinking about about a home-made mixture of Diotomaceous Earth and Fire Clay, four parts to one.

After work today I am going to light up a fire in this puppy and see how it works. Basically I am just going to play around with the inlet flues and see how the chimney drafts.