Bio-diesel

I did some research into fuels recently because of all the recent backlash against bio-diesel. What I found was striking to say the least.

Seed Stock/Oil Yield in pounds per acre

Peanut/764

Canola/600

Rapeseed/600

Safflower/600

Soy/600

Linseed/350

Corn /200

Cottonseed/200

This data was derived from 

Buchanan, G. (2010). Increasing Feedstock Production for Biofuels: Economic Drivers. BRDI , 3.

From the data above it's plain to see the largest yielding conventional crop currently grown in US soils would be peanut.

The basic idea of growing crops for fuel instead of food could be considered a bad thing in and of itself, it's definitely a bad thing to grow a conventional food crop which produces a very low quantity of oil as an oil crop. Yet this is exactly what the US farmers are doing. Corn is the lowest yielding crop that could be planted for fuel.

Under the current methods of production I cannot endorse bio-diesel. I thought I'd be the last one to encourage government involvement in private industry, but the bio-diesel market needs to be regulated. Corn needs to be taken out of the Feedstock for bio-diesel production. 

However there is nothing wrong with using waste oil of any kind as fuel be it corn, peanut, soy, animal oils even. Most of these are low in emissions and have a high energy output. I'm personally inclined to purchase land and become a peanut farmer for the production of bio-diesel myself. The yield being nearly 4 times that of the corn farmer, the comparative advantage is astronomical.

Cerameconomics

In pricing out materials I've found an array of prices for the exact same materials. I'm told it's because some places purchase large quantities of materials at once and have old stock on hand which they can sell me for cheaper. Well I'm here to tell you that the guy down at Georgies who told me that can stick his stock on hand where the sun don't shine. Their prices are outrageous and I see no other reason but that they are price gouging because they are pretty much the only game in town for ceramic artists.

Up in Tacoma however I have been pleasantly surprised by not only the products offered to me by the Clay Art Center, but also their prices. Their customer service is great on weekdays when the boss is there. On weekends the head honcho is out and the place is packed with way to many customers to be effectively helped by the staff on deck. That aside it's a pleasure doing business with Clay Art Center in Tacoma. They provide me with my wet clay, dry clay, raw materials for glazes, and the best part is they're willing to put my order on the back of the next truck headed for Stark Street Studios in Portland for a reasonable fee.

Nitride Bonded SiC

When considering the many options to build my kiln I first began to price materials. Oh boy there are a lot of materials to choose from these days. When I first started I didn't know my burner port from a whole in the ground. After some deliberation I found the cost wise Ceramic Fiber was going to be the key to my success in mobile kiln building.

I had decided to use a brick floor for durability and stability. When trying to price out bricks, I'd first looked at IFB's which I'm sure would be nice, but quite costly. I then found several deals on websites such as alibaba.com where some international company based in China posts refractories and some base price. After attempting to deal with them I quickly found that it was more trouble than it was worth. I would be quoted different prices than were posted, they didn't actually have the material on hand and were giving me "custom order" pricing. Once I realized I needed to buy local I tried to find the most local guys I could get my hands on. I had stumbled across many blogs and threads talking about many refractory companies, such as AP Green, Narco, Harbison Walker. I searched and found ANH's website online and quickly found my local supply warehouse located out on Jennifer RD in Clackamas OR. They're a good bunch of guys who sell some superior products such as the Ceramic Blanket I purchased which was made in the USA. 

I ran out of dough before purchasing bricks from Harbison Walker and had been perusing the internet looking for deals. I stumbled on another company which is extremely local Thermal Ceramics,  which has a manufacturing facility located out in the Rivergate District in N. Portland. Thermal Ceramics is the company which produces the Kaowool product that ceramic artists know so well. I purchased another product from Thermal Ceramics called Cerachem which is a 2600 degree rated blanket that I'm using as the blast face on top of the ANH blanket which is rated at 2300 degrees. After talking with Jeff for a while he and I both came to the conclusion that in my next kiln which will be a salt kiln, I should test some SiC bricks in a small test kiln. Well after giving the idea quite a bit of thought I figured I'd try them in the floor of my new oil kiln as well to see how the hold up. I decided this because they will be subjected to some of the most extreme flame conditions I can imagine. And if they don't work I'm only out a couple hundred bucks, and can just rebuild my floor with IFB's or high duty bricks with ease since the kiln is made of blanket anyway. A few hundred bucks later and I had enough bricks to build a basic kiln floor with bag walls and all. 

I really can't stress enough the impact these refractory guys have had on my project. When I started I was full of questions, and now I have still have questions, but I have some answers as well. I recommend both ANH and Thermal Ceramics for your refractory needs.

Beginning to set up in my new space. At the moment there is a lot of stuff in there that doesn't belong in my studio so that's the first task. Looks like I won't have time to begin the kiln building process until my break at the end of the month. It's been a strange transition to living here with Betsy's sister. A bit of a rocky start has yet to really smooth out. 

We did get a new dog, his name is Kona. We rescued him from the roadside near the coast. He was wandering around looking for food at the gas station. He's got a great personality and is great with the dogs and kids here. He's adjusting fine to the environment as well with better quality dog food and a schedule of eating, drinking, and walking. He seems like a really great dog, though I have yet to get him in to get shots.

Vacant

My space is vacated and I'll soon be setting up shop. I purchased 500 lbs of fireclay and some mullite grog to make thick tiles for the hot face of the floor of my kiln. I'm actually going to hand mix and then pound these tiles. I'll cut them out using a template once I measure shrinkage by firing some off in my small electric kiln. I'll only be able to guess at shrinkage since I'll only be firing to cone 6 in my electric, but it should be close enough. My final kiln dimensions will be dependent on these tiles anyway. I'm going to attempt to make them 12" square and 1.25" thick. I've also decided to make back up tiles of fireclay and vermiculite which I plan to pound out and cut with a similar template. I'll follow that up with a layer of red brick for the base layer on top of the cart. Yes it's going to be a car kiln. I can't imagine making a kiln this large and loading in it nearly 4 feet deep.

Stuck here again

Waiting is the worst...

Especially when you have about three grand laid out in products and material and you're simply waiting for someone to vacate your space.

Mobilization

My terrific aunt April sold me her trailer. It's a small steel flat bet with two wooden panels in the floor. I'm putting two cattle panel pieces in place of the wood and building the kiln in the back of the trailer. I have yet to decide how the floor/door is going to be built and I'm running out of time. I need to get it built and start making pots.

The decisions still to be made:

Floor brick:

• High duty firebrick
• Silicon Carbide

I have both of these available to me at the moment for a good price. I would like SiC to try them out more than anything. 

Car Kiln Cart/Standard floor:

I could build this either way. I have the materials available to me to build the cart, I'm just not sure I want to mess with it on my first ever real kiln build of my own. If I'd done it in previous kiln building workshops I'd feel more comfortable. Either way I'm going to essentially have the same materials, just arranged differently.

Burners:

I've been toying with the idea of actually throwing, or molding some fire clay burners. I've got loads of high refractory fire clay and grog that I'm going to mix for the saggars anyway. I have enough clay to build a small kiln out of it, and at the price of it I probably should do just that for my next project which will be a soda kiln.

I could easy enough go get some black metal pipe, cut it to length, rig up the oil line and air and spend my time tuning them instead of going through the effort of making them from scratch materials. It would be smart to do both I guess then I get burners for sure either way. Never heard a potter crying because he had too many burners laying around.

I have however decided to go with a compressed air system after all. The blowers are fairly cheap, but the compressor does double duty and I'm running lower and lower on funds for the project. Purchasing a compressor seems like the smart thing to do considering how much I'll use it for glaze application anyway.

To sum up:

This downdraft kiln will be a cattle panel frame, fiber blanket kiln on the back of a flat bed trailer with compressed air, vegetable oil powered burners, and it will either be a car kiln or a standard floor with a swing open door that bolts shut. Either way it will most likely have SiC brick floor to test it out prior to building a full SiC wood kiln/soda in the future. This future project will most likely be a pellet/oil kiln and not actually wood. I've been toying around with recycled fuel pellets and I aim to come up with a working kiln based on them in the coming year.