In the event of a kiln disaster, such as an arch blowing out, first assess the damage, then determine the cause. Next, put any necessary safety protocols in place to prevent recurrence, and, finally, start rebuilding.
In thirteen minutes, I heard the two things I never want to hear. The first came from my studio technician, Chris VanDyne. It was the final gas kiln of the summer session, and I was home when my phone buzzed. A video pops up on my screen of the arch of our 40-cubic-foot (1.1-cu.-m) down-draft, natural-gas kiln looking like a deranged set of piano keys. “I was walking away after turning it on, and I heard a crash,” my studio tech stated.
That Kiln Blew Up
As Senior Manager of Studio School at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, I manage the state’s largest community ceramic program, including eleven kilns across six atmospheres. I have built, repaired, and torn kilns down; however, this was something very different from the normal kiln problems, and I knew I was out of my element. As I frantically raced back to the studio, I called Doug Casebeer, former Associate Director and Artistic Director of Ceramics at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado—my go-to source for kiln conundrums. We talked through scenarios. Was it a busted weld? Issue with the center hinge door? A burner malfunction?
I pulled into the parking lot and ran straight to the kiln pad. I started by walking around the kiln checking all the welds, but everything looked good, no cracks, no blown welds, everything looked good. I texted Doug a photo of the arch (1). And that’s when my phone rang, and I heard the second thing I never wanted to hear, “Dave, that kiln blew up.”
Those five words instantly pulled me back to undergraduate school and hushed horror stories of kiln explosions. With this new revelation, new safety protocols for lighting the gas kilns were instantly put into effect. From that point on, all gas kiln doors are left open until all burners are fully lit. This small additional step prevents gas from building up in the case of a mechanical safety failure in the future. Now that we know what happened, it’s time to figure out why it happened and to fix the arch.
Rebuilding
Our studio’s main gas kiln is a 40-cubic-foot (1.1-cu.-m) car kiln with an attached door. When the arch blew, it sent the center three rows of bricks up, causing the rest of the arch to drop, wedging the very top shelf of the back stack in place. This complicated things—instead of simply rolling the cart out, the shelves needed to be removed to allow access to the bricks that were wedging the shelf in place. In order to make reloading faster and easier, I decided to remove each shelf as a whole and lay them out on tables, which also sped up cleaning off debris from the arch. Having cleared out the shelves (2), I was able to climb into the kiln, dislodge the bricks, and roll the rest of the cart out.
Over the next three hours, starting on the outermost row of bricks, I used a rubber mallet and a piece of scrap soft brick to gently tap each individual brick back into place (3). Going row by row, from the front of the kiln to the back wall and slowly moving toward the center of the arch, tapping in each brick about a ¼ inch (6.3 cm) or so at a time.
Once I got to the center three rows, I had to move to the top of the kiln. The blast moved the center row straight up, causing the rest of the arch to fall (4), so tapping them from underneath was not going to work. On top of the kiln, I used the same method from the interior, gently moving the three rows down very slowly (5). Since climbing up on the kiln is cumbersome, I was a little more aggressive to avoid more trips than necessary. I repeated this pattern, working from the inside to working back on top, a total of three times, with a final fourth clean-up pass on the inside. We used a Shop-Vac to vacuum out the kiln and clean off the debris from the resetting process. With the arch reset, debris cleaned out, shelves reloaded, and a few stragglers added, we were ready to go (6).
Before lighting the kiln, I inspected the burners, pilots, pilot eyes, and safety valves. Without any obvious mechanical failure to be found, a stuck safety switch combined with a blinding sunset hiding the unlit pilot was determined to most likely cause the gas build up that ignited when the burners fully kicked on.
With our new safety protocols, this scenario will never happen again, and I hope you never find yourself dealing with a blown arch, but if you do, I hope this article helps you. Take your time, patience (not force) is your friend, and a few good albums help, too.
the author David Stevens is an educator, maker, and community enabler in Oklahoma City, where he is Senior Manager of Studio School at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center. Stevens holds an MFA in ceramics from the University of Oklahoma. To learn more about his work, visit www.davesstudio.net.
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In the event of a kiln disaster, such as an arch blowing out, first assess the damage, then determine the cause. Next, put any necessary safety protocols in place to prevent recurrence, and, finally, start rebuilding.
In thirteen minutes, I heard the two things I never want to hear. The first came from my studio technician, Chris VanDyne. It was the final gas kiln of the summer session, and I was home when my phone buzzed. A video pops up on my screen of the arch of our 40-cubic-foot (1.1-cu.-m) down-draft, natural-gas kiln looking like a deranged set of piano keys. “I was walking away after turning it on, and I heard a crash,” my studio tech stated.
That Kiln Blew Up
As Senior Manager of Studio School at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, I manage the state’s largest community ceramic program, including eleven kilns across six atmospheres. I have built, repaired, and torn kilns down; however, this was something very different from the normal kiln problems, and I knew I was out of my element. As I frantically raced back to the studio, I called Doug Casebeer, former Associate Director and Artistic Director of Ceramics at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado—my go-to source for kiln conundrums. We talked through scenarios. Was it a busted weld? Issue with the center hinge door? A burner malfunction?
I pulled into the parking lot and ran straight to the kiln pad. I started by walking around the kiln checking all the welds, but everything looked good, no cracks, no blown welds, everything looked good. I texted Doug a photo of the arch (1). And that’s when my phone rang, and I heard the second thing I never wanted to hear, “Dave, that kiln blew up.”
Those five words instantly pulled me back to undergraduate school and hushed horror stories of kiln explosions. With this new revelation, new safety protocols for lighting the gas kilns were instantly put into effect. From that point on, all gas kiln doors are left open until all burners are fully lit. This small additional step prevents gas from building up in the case of a mechanical safety failure in the future. Now that we know what happened, it’s time to figure out why it happened and to fix the arch.
Rebuilding
Our studio’s main gas kiln is a 40-cubic-foot (1.1-cu.-m) car kiln with an attached door. When the arch blew, it sent the center three rows of bricks up, causing the rest of the arch to drop, wedging the very top shelf of the back stack in place. This complicated things—instead of simply rolling the cart out, the shelves needed to be removed to allow access to the bricks that were wedging the shelf in place. In order to make reloading faster and easier, I decided to remove each shelf as a whole and lay them out on tables, which also sped up cleaning off debris from the arch. Having cleared out the shelves (2), I was able to climb into the kiln, dislodge the bricks, and roll the rest of the cart out.
Over the next three hours, starting on the outermost row of bricks, I used a rubber mallet and a piece of scrap soft brick to gently tap each individual brick back into place (3). Going row by row, from the front of the kiln to the back wall and slowly moving toward the center of the arch, tapping in each brick about a ¼ inch (6.3 cm) or so at a time.
Once I got to the center three rows, I had to move to the top of the kiln. The blast moved the center row straight up, causing the rest of the arch to fall (4), so tapping them from underneath was not going to work. On top of the kiln, I used the same method from the interior, gently moving the three rows down very slowly (5). Since climbing up on the kiln is cumbersome, I was a little more aggressive to avoid more trips than necessary. I repeated this pattern, working from the inside to working back on top, a total of three times, with a final fourth clean-up pass on the inside. We used a Shop-Vac to vacuum out the kiln and clean off the debris from the resetting process. With the arch reset, debris cleaned out, shelves reloaded, and a few stragglers added, we were ready to go (6).
Before lighting the kiln, I inspected the burners, pilots, pilot eyes, and safety valves. Without any obvious mechanical failure to be found, a stuck safety switch combined with a blinding sunset hiding the unlit pilot was determined to most likely cause the gas build up that ignited when the burners fully kicked on.
With our new safety protocols, this scenario will never happen again, and I hope you never find yourself dealing with a blown arch, but if you do, I hope this article helps you. Take your time, patience (not force) is your friend, and a few good albums help, too.
the author David Stevens is an educator, maker, and community enabler in Oklahoma City, where he is Senior Manager of Studio School at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center. Stevens holds an MFA in ceramics from the University of Oklahoma. To learn more about his work, visit www.davesstudio.net.
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