An Experienced Wood Firer Shares #Kiln Plans for a Small Instructional #WoodFiredKiln

Design your own wood kiln using these wood kiln plans!

by John Thies

Excerpt: "I set out to build a very versatile and efficient wood-firing kiln that could be used by students who had interest in a complete hands-on experience, from the preparation, loading, firing and unloading to the final clean-up phase. I didn't want to interfere with the successful larger firings, in which students can get a large volume of wood-fired pots without the in-depth hands-on experience. The new kiln would allow me to cut down on the extensive labor, fuel and overhead costs of my larger kiln.

I named the new kiln '#Manabigama' at the suggestion of my friend Phil Berneburg, former technical editor for CM. In #Japanese, mana means educational or learning, bi means a thing of beauty, and gama means kiln.

The Manabigama is a traditional design with a few simple modifications. I see it as a cross between an #AnagamaKiln and a #GroundhogStyleKiln. Basically, it is a crossdraft tube built into the side of a hill. The overall interior dimensions are 24 inches in width, 7 feet in depth, 40 inches in height. Its firebox is in the front, incorporated into the inside with a grate system, and extra air intakes are built into the front and sides. This is done to provide more secondary air intake to help burn green or wet fuel. The firebox is plenty adequate being 2 feet wide, 2 feet deep and 30 inches high from the floor to ware level. The chimney has inside dimensions of 9 inches deep by 18 inches wide and is 12 feet high. The shape is a long rectangle with two straight, 18-inch-tall side walls and a catenary arch built on top. This creates ample headroom for ease of loading, as well as extra height for stacking and tall pieces.

There is approximately 24 cubic feet of ware space, more than enough for teaching purposes. The kiln door is in front, only halfway down, and is bricked up including the stoke hole. It can be loaded in two to three hours, fires evenly to Cone 10-12 in eight hours tops, or if you choose, you can fire two to three days depending on how much ash buildup you like. The consumption of fuel is also minimal-less than half a cord of wood. When loading the wood kiln, be sure to use wadding to prevent pots from sticking to shelves.

All in all, the Manabigama is a very simple design to build. It is capable of yielding wonderful ash-glazed pieces with a minimum of labor, fuel and overhead costs. And it is a fantastic wood-fired kiln for teaching without the tremendous strain of a large three-chambered kiln."

https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/daily/article/An-Experienced-Wood-Firer-Shares-Kiln-Plans-for-a-Small-Instructional-Wood-Kiln

#SolarPunkSunday #WoodFiredKiln #DIY
#Kilns #Pottery #Quicklime? #DIYKilns #TraditionalTechnology #Adaptation

#Wikihow - How to Make a #BrickKiln

Guide to making and using an easy #DIY brick kiln for firing #pottery

Co-authored by Tony Hoang

Last Updated: March 26, 2024

"Brick kilns have been used for thousands of years to create pottery, tiles, and other common objects. Whether of simple or complex design, all brick kilns use a wood fire to harden objects inside. You can easily make brick kilns once you’ve determined the needed dimensions and identified a flat clear area outdoors. By laying brick to build the kiln’s walls and covering it with a piece of iron or ceramic fiber for its roof, you can start firing your own pottery in no time."

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Brick-Kiln

#SolarPunkSunday #WoodFiredKiln #DIY
#Kilns #Homesteading #Pottery #Quicklime #BackyardKilns #TraditionalTechnology

#India - How to Make #Lime From Scratch

25/12/2018

Making Lime from Scratch - An Overview

1. Build a kiln from cob, or some other material that can stand 1000 degrees heat.

2. Collect some oyster/clam shells, or limestone (see video below).

3. Light a fire in your kiln and add your limestone/shells. Get the temperature up to between 800 and 1200 degrees.

4. Extract the shells (if using) and put them in a vat.

5. Put on protective clothing (mask, goggles, gloves, onesie etc)

6. Add warm water to the burned shells and watch the mixture bubble and froth. Be careful. Lime is caustic and can burn.

7. The longer you leave that substance slaking (submerged in plenty of water), the better quality lime you get.

"Lime. Oh lime. So versatile. So useful. But sometimes so difficult to know which kind you’re buying. You may remember my beginners' guide to different kinds of lime I penned last time. Sometimes though, all the CaOs and NHLs in the world won’t help you, because you live in a place that doesn’t regulate too carefully, and your lime turns up in mysterious dog-eared bags which inspire anything but confidence.

In that case you can always do what Gautam Singh in Mumbai did. Cut out the middle man, and make it yourself. He shared his process in our members' only Facebook Group last week, and I think it's fabulous.

" 'Unsure and concerned about of the quality of lime we were purchasing, especially for some tadelakt work, we made a small kiln to make our own lime,' says Gautam, who is still battling on with plaster work over there in Mumbai. I’ve got to hand it to him, he’s not a quitter:)

'It's specifically for tadelakt,' he says, and 'I’m happy to say it works, and wasn’t too complicated or time consuming either.' Oh...music to my ears!

How did they create their own quick lime?
First Gautam and his friends built the kiln out of cob (see above). Next, he collected a bunch of oyster and clam shells from seafood sellers. You don't crush the shells, they are left whole so they are easy to identify post burning, because the entire burned shell will be converted into Calcium Oxide or pure lime.

'Research stated the shells needed to be fired between 800-1200℃. Any less and it wouldn't have the reaction that turns it into lime, and any more would melt the shells,' he informed us.

I asked him how he measured the temperature. 'Figuring out the temperature was tricky at first, but luckily a professional #potter friend came to the rescue and we used a #thermocouple to measure the temperature for the first two trials. After that it became easier because then I knew it took between 40-60 mins to achieve that 800-1200 degrees required for my kiln.'

Initial Troubles

In the beginning Gautam thought he'd failed. But in fact it's a good example of how things are sometimes not what they appear. 'After our first firing attempt, we went through the burnt matter, extracted all the shells and put them in a pot. Then we tried adding water. But there was no reaction!'

Our pioneer thought perhaps he hadn’t fired the shells at a high enough temperature. He prepared his kiln for a second attempt. It was then he chanced upon a golden nugget of online information advising the use of warm water (not cold) to slake the burnt shells. The Mumbai team decided to try it.

'So we used the same shells, added warm water and voila! It started boiling and reacting violently,' he says."

Read more:
https://www.themudhome.com/mudbuilding/how-to-make-lime-from-scratch

#SolarPunkSunday #SustainableMaterials #Quicklime #AncientTechnologies #Science

Ahhhh... Using a hand-drill to start a fire. Now that takes me back to my days at the Wilderness School! I'd love to try and make a pottery-kiln (I'll be researching that soon...)

#Australia - Making #lime with Primitive Technology

"When heated above 840 degrees Celsius, the lime decomposes into calcium oxide (CaO) or #Quicklime and releases carbon dioxide (CO2). When water is added to the quicklime it becomes calcium hydroxide Ca (OH)2 or #LimePutty. From here the calcium hydroxide can then be shaped into a form and allowed to set.

Carbon dioxide enters the lime putty as it dries causing it to turn back into calcium carbonate. The new calcium carbonate has then set, remaining solid and water resistant.

In my local geography, calcareous rocks such as limestone are absent leading to a difficulty in acquiring the feed stock for lime making. However, I was still able to make lime by collecting the shells of large terrestrial snails that are native to the rainforest here. The unoccupied shells of these snails were gathered up and stored at the hut. Fire wood was gathered and packed neatly into the kiln.

Importantly, the firewood was stacked on top of the grate rather than underneath it in the firebox as is the normal procedure for firing pottery. Using an ordinary updraft pottery kiln in this configuration allows it to reach much higher temperatures than would be possible during normal use. The wood was lit from above and the fire burned down towards the grate. Alternate layers of shells and wood were added on to this burning fuel bed. After adding the last layer of wood to act as a 'lid' to prevent heat loss from above I left the kiln to finish on its own, unsupervised. The whole process took about an hour and a half.

When the kiln had cooled down a few hours later, I took out the calcined shells. Not shown in the video was the fact that some shells got so hot, the dirt stuck to them turned into slag and fused to them, possibly with the lime acting a flux lowering its melting point. This extreme heat (+1200 c) should be avoided as the over burnt lime becomes 'dead lime', unable to slake in water. Most shells were still useable though. They were taken out of the kiln and had water added to them.

An exothermic reaction then ensued. Heat was produced as the lime quicklime turned into slaked lime. The water heated up creating steam and the shells decomposed into a white paste. The paste was stirred and crushed pottery was added to it as an aggregate (sand is normally used for this, I just had a lot of old pot sherds lying about to dispose of).

This lime mortar mixture was then formed into a block shape and left to dry. It took about a week and a half to set as we have had extremely humid, wet weather. The block was observed to have set demonstrating its properties.

What I created is actually lime mortar, typically used for mortaring bricks and tiles together. It’s basically the ‘Glue’ that holds together the building blocks of masonry structures. From my research 20 kg of lime mortar is used on a 1 m square section of brick wall. 5 kg of lime to 15 kg of aggregate (sand, grog etc.) per a 1 m square section of bricks. The shells, though large, are not terribly abundant. A method for finding shells efficiently needs to be made before considering making lime mortar in this fashion. From my experience sand bars in a creek sometimes accumulate snail shells from higher up in the mountains. In these spots, water velocity decreases and shells in the water tend to drop out of the water column. Additionally lime may be partially replaced with ordinary wood ash in mortar without a corresponding decrease in strength. To conclude, making lime in a land without limestone is possible but can be problematic when trying to do so on a large scale."

Watch:
https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/making-lime-with-primitive-technology

YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek3aeUhHaFY&t=46s

Wordpress:https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/

Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2945881

#SolarPunkSunday #SustainableMaterials #TraditionalTechnology #ZeroWaste #Mortar #LimeMortar #Snailshells #Adaptation #AncientTechnologies #Science #AnimalProducts #LocalMaterials

...this is the _third_ folk tale I've come across where a lake-dwelling #dragon was killed by tricking it into eating #quicklime .

#ttrpg players take note: There is ample precedent for playing dirty when fighting dragons!

https://archive.org/details/grabersagenauskaernten/page/n111/mode/2up?view=theater

SciTech Chronicles.. . . . .May 13th, 2025

https://bit.ly/stc051325

#AEM #PEM #Alkaline #nickel #pozzolana #"lime clasts" #quicklime #"hot mixing" #wastewater #"genetic material" #sequencing #PCR #genomes #CCR5 #"1000 Genomes Project" #chemokines #industrial #enol #light-powered #separation

Was surprised today when I read "pinked him in the quick". I presumed it should be "pinned". This lead me to do some search and find some interesting information about the #word #quick.
#alive was the original meaning of "quick." The flesh under the nail is called quick because the nail, the hard part, is dead, but the flesh is "alive."
Some other words still in use today which carry the original meaning of quick include #quicklime, literally "living lime", #quicksand "living sand." "quicksilver", comes from the fact that mercury flows, as though it were alive.
"The quick and the dead" did not refer to gunslingers in the Old American West, but instead refers to "the living and the dead."

#reading #words #meaning

Rutas Enemigas #522

- Qucklime_ N.O.T.A. / old fashion runners
- Friko: Crashing through
-Quicklime: F.U.A.D. / Night embrance
- Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard: In my egg
- Quicklime: 1979 / I'm done / Summer's over

https://archive.org/details/programa-522-de-rutas-enemigas

#radio #podcast #radioshow #webradio #radiopodcast #radiolibre #freeradio #RutasEnemigas #rock #indierock #pop #rockalternativo #postpunk #powerpop #grunge #quicklime #music #Toledo

Nos visita la banda toledana Quicklime, que nos presenta en exclusiva su debut discográfico, Upper middle class heroes. Escuchamos su disco y charlamos con ellos.

https://archive.org/details/programa-522-de-rutas-enemigas

#radio #podcast #radioshow #webradio #radiopodcast #radiolibre #freeradio #RutasEnemigas #rock #indierock #pop #rockalternativo #postpunk #powerpop #grunge #quicklime #music #Toledo