Pyrometer
I'm way late writing and posting the last few days of work. But that's more or less ok. Unless you've been visiting every day hoping for updates on progress ... yeah right. Last Friday I put in the pyrometer and the peep hole. Yes that's right, I only use one peephole. I never used the others on my old kiln, and until I see a pressing need for more, I'm sticking with one.
The pyrometer was pretty easy. I drilled a hole slightly larger than the pyrometer diameter between two bricks. I know that sliding the pyrometer in and out to move shelves is going to damage the bricks, so I might have to make a bigger hole in the future for a porcelain tube. Bearing that in mind I drilled as close to the top of one groove as I could to allow for room for the porcelain tube. I don't want a larger hole to break through to the groove above.
Luckily my drill bit was just long enough to at least touch the aluminium skin. It managed to sufficiently pimple the skin so that I could easily see where to drill. I use peep hole stoppers to hold the pyrometer, so I use a hole saw a bit smaller than the large diameter of the stopper. It was a bit too small, but not too big a deal, I sanded it down by hand so it would fit nice.
Peephole
Next was the peep hole. This was considerably more difficult. It for the most part goes through the top row of elementless bricks. I wanted it to angle down slightly so it points at the top element. This is pretty much required in order to actually be able to tell where the cones are.
I first drilled a big hole through the aluminium, much larger than the eventual hole through the brick. Next, I took the brick out. This is pretty easy there's quite a bit of play in the bricks when they're not under a lot of tension.
I next drilled through the brick. I drilled a hole as big as a table leg that I'd bought specifically for the purpose. The picture shows slowly reaming out the hole. This worked, but very slowly. Plus I had to put a little too much pressure into than I was comfortable with. So, I wrapped the leg in sandpaper. I enlarge the hole quite quickly after that.
Of course, the brick below needed to have some taken out too. I didn't quite get the angle right. Fortunately, it was quite easy with the tube of sandpaper. I just worked on it slowly until it was nice, and the stopper fits well.
Finally, I really didn't like the exposed fibre, so I cut a small piece of M-Board from the scrap, and then cut a hole in that which fits the hole in the skin. Unfortunately, the dust coming off the board is pretty much the same stuff as the fibre, so I simply squeezed some of the Duquesne cement on it, and smeared it over so that sliding the block in and out is protected from raising too much dust.
Damage so far:
| elements and stuff | $200 |
| bricks | $450 |
| 6 tubes cement | $36 |
| steel base | $27 |
| 2 sheets M-Board | $100 |
| 107x28 inches 20 gauge aluminium | $90 |
| Electrical box | $50 |
| Table leg | $5 |
| total | $1223 |
