bonjiri wrote:john. i'm in the process of building a small hybrid woodfire kiln. thinking about using coconut wood only or macadamia nuts. wondering what sorts of fire pattern or effects i'll get...
dreaming on the design. most likely it will be a mini anagama form. simple. all firebox.
wondering what i should tell the neighbors
cory,
Just tell them it is a barbecue grill. Put a little place on the top to cook something on it.
There are simple things you can do to minimize the smoke situation. One is to design the firebox for decent aeration. The old traditional anagama and noborigama firebox designs do not get air thru the fuel very well. Another is to select the wood you burn for its LACK of smoke prodution. Yet one more is to stoke less wood more often. Next add a "smoke chamber" before the chimney and a way to introduce air into that chamber to brun off unburned fuel content. And lastly you can add a simple afterburner into the chimney. (There are more too.)
I have no idea what exactly coconut ash or macademia nut ash is composed of... so no idea what effects you might expect. Should be interesting no matter what.
The "mini-gama" concept mentioned by Michael works great. I've had students build them occasionally. A great exercise in learning about kilns and solid fuel firing. A lot of fun. From a "time is money" standpoint...... they are somewhat impractical for real use though. As the "little red sportscar" ... they can be a blast. And you vcan put them in the trunk of your car and haul them around.
Small (permanent) wood kilns are perfectly workable......so you should be fine. I am sort of thinking seriously of adding a small-ish new anagama here at my studio to add to my large-ish noborigama and my little 40 cubic foot gas bisque kiln. I'd like something that for me already owning a large woodkiln is the "little red sports car". One that I can crank out a realtively fast load in, and oriented to more pure shizenyu and koge than my nobori is.
Here's a couple of shots of the kiln I was asked to design and build this summer as the leader of an international workshop. It is at Kanayamayaki in Japan. They wanted a more western style unit to join the serious plethora of Japanese wood kilns located there. So I took a traditional USA Groundhog concept and crossed it with elements of an anagama....and came up with this salt kiln (see attachments).
OOPS..... have to work on the attachment thing here. Pictures to follow.
EDIT.... I'll do it this way:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
One of my pieces from the first firing of that salt kiln:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page= ... 1813411552
best,
...............john
