Monday, May 25, 2009

Tough Kiln to Crack


The last couple of days I have been tearing apart an old kiln, mining it for parts, etc. The switch box was a particularly interesting configuration and very tough to get apart. The image to the right shows the switch box after I finally removed all switches and wiring and any fastners I saw holding it to the kiln, 4 screws on the outside of the switch box, 24 screws that held the switches in place on the switch box(6 switches 4 screws each), 3 nuts in the center of the switch box holding the plug wires in place, and 3 nuts under those 3 wires, 24 nuts holding the switch wires in place and a washer for each nut, also 2 very strong screws that hurt my hand while unscrewing, i heard a pop in my right hand and it hurts a bit now...hope it wasn't something important. But after all that notice how the box is still attached to the kiln. I have no idea what is holding the switch box to the kiln still. There are 3 metal straps that hold the kiln together I suppose if I removed them I will find out what is holding the box on but for now I want the bricks intact as I haven't decided what I want to do with this kiln.

Its a shallow wide kiln, I was told an old glass kiln, it has no kiln sitter, no peep hole, no place to stick a parameter so I don't know how this kiln was fired to temp. The 6 switches themselves looked like light switches with on/offs. I'm not really sure about the kiln except I was not going to plug it it. I am looking into maybe turning it into a raku kiln or a small gas kiln perhaps. If neither of those options work out I will use the lid as a surface to braze copper and brass on. Right now it is wrapped in a tarp under a sheet of hardy board in the backyard.

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