Tuesday 12 April 2016

The kiln finished - as far as we're able to go!

The first rows of tiles

It has taken several weeks to fit the kiln tiles, with Richard doing most of the work and everyone else running errands (fetching things, drilling holes etc) for him.  He has had to work on a board over the steel t-bars, the tiles themselves are not strong enough to stand on. To make things more difficult, some of the tiles are 12 inches square, and some are 31 cm.



The finished kiln floor
In any case. we only have about 55 tiles, and we would need 144 to cover the whole area.  As there isn't a complete layer, it was especially important to fix them to the bars.  We made a number of clamp brackets, fixed by a bolt through the existing holes in the tiles.  We decided to fit them to give a sort of cut-away view of the kiln. Here you can see the final installation.  As an electrician is due to fit some additional lighting, we have put signs up to warn him about the fragility of the tiles!


Other jobs today have included tightening the wedges in the pit wheel and main shaft, carrying on cobbling the yard, painting doors and mending the plant sales wheelbarrow for the gardeners!  Also a team of volunteers from Sizergh have been clearing out our headrace - thanks, all!