muse | no muse

Between getting my hair cut and my woodworking group, Saturday was pretty much a loss for getting much of anything done. Sunday, however, I got busy framing solo. Nat came out and helped me get some supports on the eastern wall, and John (Number Three) helped me move the north most wall from the patio into its position when he arrived for dinner. I whipped up some experimental tequila lime fajitas and acquired John's help with the last wall yesterday. I miss having Justin about, but not anywhere near enough to begrudge him a job he seems quite likely to enjoy. I'm hoping to get the roof in place within the next couple of days.

A few pictures of the shed in progress.

Posted by jack hattaway at 6:53 AM | Permalink

My Constant Readers may recall my entry relating how I arrived at the decision to build an updraft ceramic kiln. With graduation looming, access to the metal shop in the art department closed for the summer and my welder's pending move to Wyoming, I felt some pressure to get my kiln frame built. After carefully reviewing the updraft section of Fredrick Olsen's The Kiln Book and studying local examples of his kilns, I compiled my list of metal and went shopping at Wasatch Steel.

After the adventures in funding the potential to buy more natural gas, I confess to a degree of uncertainty, hesitation and fear regarding my metal shopping trip. I kept expecting the woman who accepted my order to request my permit, license to buy steel, secret handshake, password or first born child. Happily, once I got my mind wrapped around the basic nuances of ordering terminology, the purchase proceeded without any major hitches. I did discover steel tube does not mean round. The hard way.

Justin and I took the metal to the shop at the art department of the University on Saturday morning. I discussed my project with one of my ceramic instructors and with the shop/tool manager prior to buying the metal. I offered to cover my consumables and both assured me use of the facility was not a problem so long as I was out before it closed for the summer. Justin and I measured and cut most of the stock I'd purchased before wearing out a fairly fresh band saw blade. The next day, I ran into the shop manager and told him what had happened.

Because I thought I'd covered my bases, I didn't drop in at the art department first thing in the morning. This was a mistake.

When I dropped in midway through Monday morning to get a list of parts necessary to get the plasma cutter and mig welder usable, I was quickly made aware the midden had hit the rotary air circulation device and my name was mud. In fact, after explaining what had happened and iterating my complete willingness to pay for consumables to include the band saw blade, I was invited to take my metal elsewhere. I was told if I were making an art piece, I could be excused for my use of the tools; but, as I was building a tool to facilitate the continued pursuit of my area of emphasis, there was no room for my use of the metal facility. After five years of tuition and exorbitant studio fees to the art department, I simmered with anger just barely controlled. Justin and I relocated the metal to my house.

I spent most of the following week chasing down a welder. By Saturday, I had stick and MIG welders and a plasma cutter. Justin and I worked hard and managed to get a pair of frames together -- although the first requires some extensive rehabilitation. We returned the MIG and plasma cutter about 11:30p and got some sleep before replacing his subfloor the next morning (see the June 1 catch up story below).

In the end, all forward progress on the home studio is good and welding equipment pops up in the most unexpected places.

Kiln Frame Construction Photos

Posted by jack hattaway at 12:11 PM | Permalink

Questar delivered and installed my new meter this morning. Installation included connecting the meter both to the house and to the new kiln line with a valve to shut down the kiln line. A picture of the new meter has been added to the end of the Kiln Construction photo album. Next on the docket is an enclosure for the kiln and assembling the frame. Glacial progress continues.

Posted by jack hattaway at 1:47 PM | Permalink

I scheduled time with Number 6 to pour a cement pad for the kiln I am currently building. Saturday morning quickly became Saturday afternoon as most anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The auto parts places in Bountiful weren't open until 8:00a, the hitch that was purported to come with the truck we'd arranged to borrow didn't, said hitch was part of a display in a store that didn't open until 9:00a, and when we finally made it to AA Ucart, the two yard mixing trailer was already out for the morning.

The evening before, Justin and I set and leveled the forms and installed the rebar. I, however, neglected to remeasure and recalculate the final volume of the pad -- I strongly recommend against this course of action for those of you considering playing with cement at home. The difference between 2 and 2.75 yards is large. I somehow managed to convince myself the pad volume could not possibly have exceeded two yards. My preliminary calculation was 1.8 yards before I laid in a ton of gravel. A phrase often used by one of my drill sergeants regarding assumptions springs readily to mind in hindsight.

My constant readers may recall the pad we poured at Justin's house last easter and the subsequent razzing regarding his expertise in the volume calculation department. While Justin's pad was a miserable three trips for cement, I successfully stooped to a new low with four trips for cement to finish my pad -- two to Ucart for the first 2.5 yards and two to Home Depot. I was positive after recalculating 2.35 yards would be an excessive amount of concrete to finish the job and bought an additional half yard just to be safe. When it became clear the extra half yard was insufficient to do the job, the trips to Home Depot started.

This, of course, only doubled the crow I have to eat.

Stupidity aside, the premixed concrete is hands down the best way to deal with significant amounts of cement for the home owner. The price is a bit less than purchasing the same amount of concrete by the bag from the home improvement megastore, though the savings was almost eliminated by a price reduction this last week on the per bag price of cement. I'm told the premixed cement is a better quality cement. I chatted with Doug at Ucart while he mixed up my second batch. Mixing on the spot allows the supplier to add in small extras like a defloculant to reduce the amount of water needed to make the cement usable -- less water means stronger cement. Not breathing the concrete dust or moving the eighty pound bags of mix multiple times is another significant bonus. The twelve bags of mix allowed me to correct my mistake, but at a cost of an aggravated lower back and full activation of my allergies.

The kiln construction photo album has been updated with a few photos associated with the pour. The three photographs at the cement yard were taken with my Sony Clie NX-80 PDA. I am undecided whether the camera attached to the palm is worth its cost, but it was handy for the capture of these images.

Posted by jack hattaway at 9:29 PM | Permalink

As a part of my final studio class for the ever useful Bachelor of Fine Arts with emphasis in ceramics degree, the instructor set up some studio visits with local potters and ceramic artists. I had mixed feelings about these field trips, mostly negative. It was a pleasant surprise after the first two visits to find myself excited not only to produce ceramic work again, but to complete my home studio.

One of our visits took us to the home studio of Aaron Ashcraft, where Aaron was in process of opening up his Olsen 16 updraft kiln. The virtues of the downdraft kiln have been iterated to me so many times, they have become a part of my thought processes. I believed high fire reduction necessitated a downdraft kiln design. This pattern of thought combined with my experience firing both types of kilns at the University of Utah left me unprepared for the sight of Aaron's opened kiln. Not only were Aaron's pieces beautifully reduced, the kiln fired evenly top to bottom.

The updraft kilns I've fired on campus have differed up to two full cones top to bottom. I have heard rumors that it is possible to fire an updraft evenly. Until our class visit to Aaron's studio, I had never seen proof. I walked out of Aaron's studio knowing two things: 1) I could build a high fire, reduction kiln fairly inexpensively and 2) it was possible to make some money selling pots. I hold few illusions about being a potter or ceramic artist. I will most likely not ever make enough money to pay the mortgage and support a family with clay, but given Aaron's figures, there is a potential for a significant secondary income source.

I began to scheme, plan and research.

I was shocked to learn how expensive insulating fire brick and other refractory material is. Over one third of my total cost will be refractories. My estimate, given pricing from the local Harbison-Walker rep, is $2,400.00 and should cover two courses of brick on the floor and walls, the sprung arch and mortar.

The install fee for an upgraded natural gas meter was educational. Local lore tells stories of the gas company installing larger meters without charge save an increased meter fee. This is sadly not the case at present. The kiln I'm building will run seven burners at seven inches of water column pressure (the same pressure for natural gas in most US homes) and have a peak consumption of 350,000 BTUs/hour. The sales engineer calculated a larger capacity meter at the current pressure. My meter fee remains the same, but I get to pay about $500 for the privilege of buying more gas from the gas company.Though a painful immediate payment, paying for the meter up front is better over the long term than a quadrupling of the meter fee and the necessity of regulating each of our home's gas appliances. At least I keep telling myself this is so.

Friday, March 19th stopped me cold in my tracks. After trenching 55 feet from my gas meter to my kiln location, I popped into the local plumbing store and asked for a pair of risers and plastic gas pipe. At which point, I was informed of the necessity to be both licensed and certified in order to so much as gaze on either item. A couple dozen phone calls later, I got connected with Marv from Shamrock Plumbing. His bill will be in the neighborhood of $700 for parts and labor to install and test the line in my trench. With a bit of luck, he'll be done Wednesday, March 24th and I can back fill the trench before a storm changes my dirt to mud.

The gas line delayed a fun Saturday morning of mixing and pouring concrete as I was not willing to pour nearly two yards of cement with an open trench a few inches away. If all goes as currently scheduled, the new kiln pad will be curing this weekend.

I've uploaded some photos of the project in process as well as a couple of notebook page scans with preliminary elevations and measurements for those with nothing better to do.

Posted by jack hattaway at 7:42 PM | Permalink