I decided to install the elements. I've never replaced elements in a
kiln before, so I was a bit hesitant about how it would work out. It
was much less painfull than I thought it would be.
Step 1, poke holes through the wall. I made a little tool out of a coat hanger. Then I just jammed it through the walls. The hot face of my wall bricks is about 6 inches. So, I spaced the holes 2 inches apart centered in the bricks. The tool pierced the brick pretty easily, and the elements fit perfectly in the hole.
Next was to drill the holes through the aluminium skin. I marked the outside using a square and level and drilled through. The hole through the aluminium has be quite big to accomodate the insulators. Run the drill slow, and wear glasses, you'd hate for a hot sliver of steel or aluminium to brand your eyeball.
Unfortunately, since it's impossible to punch the holes through the brick perfectly with the simple coat hanger hole, the aluminium holes didn't always line up. It wasn't too hard to use a loop tripping tool to fish for the element though.
Next, you need to stretch the element. Since the kiln is 23 inches
diameter, and the groove is 3/4 of an inch, the circumference you need
to stretch the element to is about 75 inches. But, you'll want to
stretch it a bit more than that in order to make it self tension
itself in the grooves. 80 inches is too far, I found about 77-78 to be
perfect. So, in the general case 3 to 5 % more should be perfect.
Once you have it stretched it's simple, put the tails through the walls first and then slide the elements into the grooves.
