Today I completed the assembly of the primary heat exchange on the small kiln. The pipes were made with an extruder and a hollow die out of local clay, and the pipe connectors were press-molded from the same clay. To fit them all in the bisque firing, I built a temporary extension on the firebox, and loaded up half of the parts into the firebox and half into the main chamber of the kiln. Some of the pipes were fired up to as high as cone 6 (1200 deg C), while others went up to about cone 010 (800 deg C). The ones that went up to cone 6 experienced some pyroplasticity and warped a little bit.
I plan to add in a secondary heat exchange unit using stainless steel pipes and some other extruded clay parts as well. Will be working on this tomorrow.
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