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I finally gave up on my Olympic gas kiln when I found a good used Skutt 1227 with computer controller on craigslist. Though it was in good shape, one of the top bricks had a crack in it about 4 inches long and about an inch in from the inside edge. It looked as if someone had thoughtlessly press their hand down on this weak thin edge. The prior owner had tried unsuccessfully to fix it by squirting some kiln cement in there and clamping it. Given that just kiln cement had proven an unsuccessful strategy, I tried another strategy which apparently is working quite well.

Given the theory that kiln cement sticks very well but has very little tensile strength I set about the following:

I carved a channel a half inch wide extending about a quarter inch on either side of the crack and about a 16th of an inch deep for the length of the crack. Like my predecessor, I squirted thin kiln cement down into the crack and worked it in as far as I could. Then I took a small amount of high temperature ceramic blanket soaked in kiln cement and filled my half-inch wide channel and smoothed it so that it was even with the other bricks. I have done one 06 bisque firing and the patch appears to be stronger than the original brick, though I have not done any destruction testing


The ceramic blanket soaked in kiln cement is very easy to work. If necessary, I think you could easily handbuild a missing chunk of kiln brick.

Larry

eoteceramics, on 08 April 2013 - 01:33 AM, said:

Have you taken a look at the clay boss, it sells around the net new, delivered, for $550ish and works pretty well.