Bill Schell's "BeachWeb" for December 2012            made-with-Nvu-t.png

YES - Today is Saturday, the 1st of December, 2012

we're having some 'renovation' done on our garage... - here's a couple of pictures...

West & South walls
west wall (semi-demolished) and south wall (mostly complete); French door (on south wall) is into Ms. May's pottery-studio.   Ms. May's studio also has a new air-conditioner (and other such things).
We're also entertaining the idea of a small deck or some flagstone(s) in front of the new French Door into Ms. May's pottery-studio.  We haven't quite decided what to do here, but something significantly beautiful and functional.
The plywood will eventually have a window and a fixed-piece-of-glass for Ms. May's studio improvements to be complete.  Between the studio improvement(s) and the new gas-fired-kiln, there will be wonderful things to come.


North Wall - Semi-complete
This is the north-wall, mostly complete.  This wall did not take a lot of 'effort' as it had the fewest opening(s) and it also did not have any 'bugs' to speak-of, however, we've had our pest-control-company do some spraying inside the open walls as we have made them available.  This extra spraying will cost us a couple hundred dollars (to do all three walls) but once you open these walls up - it's the only time in 10 years we've lived here, we might as well get them sprayed.

OVERALL:
- the cedar planking on the North, West and South facing walls was deteriorated significantly.  So - we're replacing it with 'HardiePlank'.  This 'concrete-based' siding should last significantly beyond us and when painted last even longer... - what you see in these pictures that is 'yellow' is the Hardie Plank, and that yellow-color is simply the primer-paint.   We will eventually have it painted - though some of us are 'struggling' with picking one of the THOUSANDS of colors available... - You might also note some significant re-modelling of the pottery-studio portion of the garage.  IT AIN'T finished yet - we have more to do...


Here's a 'track-log' from a recent recumbent tricycle ride... - (this one happens to have taken place on 23 September, 2012...

23Sep12_TQ_bc.jpg

This tricycling route (the purple line) was 'approximately' 33 miles.   Tricycling continues to be Mr. Bill's main form of exercise.  AND recent 'maintenance' on the tricycle has made riding a lot more pleasant these days!


SINCE today is ONLY the first of December, there's NOT MUCH TO REPORT, YET!

flower.purple.jpg

This may be an older picture but it is still pretty good!


Kiln-Things:

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Saturday & Sunday, 22, 23 December this is 'about' where we are at this point...



Saturday, 01 December 2012 UPDATE on the Kiln building progress... - we are 'essentially done'.  

Permit signed OK

we are now "LEGAL" (well - at least the LP-gas installation is 'legal'),  the inspector has 'signed-off' on the permit, and that makes that part of the project 'complete'...

Now - before you go jumping to conclusions and asking when we will ship you new and wonderful pottery, don't get 'all fired up' (pun intended!)  -

The first firing of this kiln will, most probably, not be until 'about' end of January or February...

The contractor people DID FIRE all SIX BURNERS very briefly (less than 5 minutes) after they piped up all the burners on Tuesday, 27 November, and that was DEFINITELY EXCITING. 

However, there are still some 'things to do' before we can really FIRE IT UP realistically and put art-work in it.  

I (Mr. Bill) has to make a new 'top-mold' for the 'fireboxes' (of which I've now built seven, of which one is quite nice  (and two are cracked) ).   These take the 'brunt' of the 'punishment' handed out by the six burners (and those burners do put out some FLAME and some BTUs).  They MUST be cast from high-temperature concrete, with stainless steel 'needles' (as reinforcement).   I need to learn more about the 'top-mold' (which makes the part that the flame will hit) and make this part 'better' than the ones in the past.   I fear a lot of work is in the offing to make a new, better, easier to remove, more properly shaped 'top-mold', and then I should be able to cast these fairly quickly. 

The reason the last two cracked was because I had not sufficient 'draft-angle' on the top-mold, so taking it out of the bottom-mold broke the concrete - UGH UGH...   In addition to these 'fireboxes' which I have to make, there is work yet to do on the vertical damper, work yet to do on the 'horizontal flue',  casting of new inserts & parts for the 'front-door-jam' and - well - MORE work to do on other things ... 

Powerball.sm.jpg
the kiln has been a 'significant drain' on 'scarce resources' as you might imagine.
We 'thought' we'd come up with a way to pay for it (amongst other things) - but - alas, we didn't win!

ANYWAY - we are MUCH NEARER to firing than we have ever been, but there is still a lot of work to do

YOU can view the images, (some of which are not 'oriented' quite right) - by clicking on this link...
- the files are NOT in chronological order... - sorry:   http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/BeachWeb2012/Aug12/BrickDelivery

Some 'Kiln Assembly' picture(s) (which SHOULD be in 'chronological' order) here:  http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/BeachWeb2012/Sep12/KilnAssembly

You can see this blog-site which may be of more 'value added' if you are looking for Kiln Pictures (and a tiny bit of text?):    http://vikingasia.blogspot.com

Our August web-page:    http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/BeachWeb2012/Aug12/Aug12.html
Our September web-page:    http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/BeachWeb2012/Sep12/Sep12.html

Mr. Panda-Bear's web-page:    http://www.vikingasia.org/BeachWeb/PandaBear/PB.html


Archived BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):   Click here for a list of the archived months


updated: 19:49  p.m. (USA-EDT)  Thursday, 10 October, 2013;  by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh 'Mac Mini' - revID:  1c