Hint: dip the bricks in water before laing them up. The wet bricks won't suck the water out of your mortar and thus the bricks will stick together better.
also when you use the trowel, press the clay mortar with force into the surface of the bricks on both sides. makes them stick together way stronger then when applying little force and only one side of the brick.
Thanks so much for sharing! I bought a wheel a year ago and got discouraged because I couldn’t fire anything. These last few months it occurred to me to make my own kiln..duh! I just couldn’t find the right plan till now! So grateful! I will be trying this out very soon.
I really love Andy Ward- Such great knowledge of a very specific subject, and he just owns it. He has videos on every subject. Thank you Andy and hello from central Nevada. 😊
Hello, I can’t wait to see the result. How long does firing a kiln should last ? Also How long after pottery looks red hot should the fire continue? Thank you for your videos it is vers inspiring.
You will need to watch my firing video that is coming up. You can maintain the heat as long as you think you need to. I’m glad you are enjoying my videos.
Hi Andy. I think your kiln looks very functional and quite sturdy. I noticed that your kiln looks very close to your cements block wall. A piece of sheet metal should reflect enough heat to prevent any heat damage to the block. It is amazing how much heat even a little kiln will produce when you are cramming every spar BTU you can find into it. I looked into paper kilns and was surprised at how well they insulate. So, was thinking thin layers of adobe with lots of straw on the outside of the kiln might help retain more heat and shield the block wall. I am wondering what you are going to put on top of the kiln? Two plates of something will allow you to throttle the fire and retain more heat. As well as put the kiln into reduction at the end of the firing. A piece of flue pipe will also improve the draft. But I don't know how far away from your original thought you may want to go. When I referred to your kiln as little I was by no means trying to slight it in anyway. I think your kiln will be a real work horse and you will be able to pull an amazing amount of pottery through it. I hope I don't sound like too much of a know it all with a lot of unsolicited advice. I am really meaning it to have a conversation. Thinking is nice, but doing is better. And you seem to be doing very well, cheers.
Thanks for the tips Russell. I fired it yesterday, no problems with the block wall getting hot. I used a few concrete pavers to cover the top and retain more heat. It did get a little smokey at one point but everything came out great. Look for the video of the firing on my channel March 24.
I just found your channel and I’m happy I did. I live in Georgia, and have clay everywhere. It is extremely wet her, so thank you for the wet climate advice. I can’t wait to get started.
You are always one step ahead of me (lol). This has been on my "to do" list all winter. I need just a few weeks more for the weather to warm up to build mine. I have built a coal forge in almost the same way. I am going to make a few adjustment to your version and add what I learned from building the coal forge on my kiln. If it works, I share with everyone on Instagram. If not, I'll just remake it the way you have done it.
Hi Andy, your kiln looks a lot like a bloomery furnace for processing iron ore into wrought iron. Those get to 1,000c or so. Have you considered putting in a tuyere below the pottery you can use to force air into the kiln? You can make a clay pipe that your fire and then connect it to a bellows, or an electric leaf blower. You can get crazy heat out of a charcoal charged furnace/kiln that way.
Thank you for this video! Nicely done! I'm going to build one of these when the weather warms up. We have a little bit more moisture up here in Northern Arizona, so I will have to find a solution to protect the mortor
Awesome, glad I could help. Be sure to check out my latest livestream for more tips on how to build and also info on how I am firing it recently. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A4LVKo2FXJQ.html
Same here, there used to be a place in my town that would fire my pieces but they shut down. I was blown away by kiln prices so now I'm here trying to build my own. Good luck!
Thanks for this, my wife and i wanted to get into pottery. I want a more ancient style wheel and she wants one with a wheel. So we will see how much i like spinning it myself.
Thank you for this very informative video. I love ceramics. I love pottery very much and would love to make my own pots, mugs, plates, & more. My only problem is finding a way to fire my pieces. We live in an apartment. Hardly no land to the place. Just enough for parking lol. Maybe I can talk with landlord & make a deal?! Thank you sir! 🙏🌹
I am waiting for the inaugural firing, I made some mud mortar 10 years ago and I used two type of mixture: 50/50 sand/clay and the other one was 50/50 sand/clay and added 1 part of cement to 9 parts of the mud/clay mixture. The 50/50 sand/clay mixture got eroded by the elements (rain, wind, hot, cold, sun) and the 9:1 mixture have not eroded at all.
Regular brickwork would work but using firebrick and high temperature mortar is the proper method, just use standard masonry for the outer walls or build some type of shelter to protect it from weather in wet or freeze/thaw regions.
The last comment I made was reproduced from my failing memory when I hit cancel instead of comment on the very first one. So I just realized that I had left out this part. When you are first starting up the kiln, if you place a temporary grate on top of the kiln and build a small hot fire, it will burn away all the smoke coming out of the top. Since smoke is just unburned fuel. This should help with having a stealthy urban kiln, cheers again.
I'm glad that you addressed ways to protect it from moisture in wetter environments. I live in Washington state and we see a lot of rain where I live. I would build mine on a cinder block platform. Another challenge I would face is the summer burn bans. The burn bans can get so strict that you can only burn in a wood stove and only if it is your primary source of heat for your house.
We frequently get small wildfires along our highways during the summer, but they get put out quickly. It is the ones deeper in the forests and grassy spaces that are harder to get under control.
So if I remember right a long time ago there was product called star set. It was used in firer place construction in the fire box where the flame was the hotest, It came in a pail and was not to be frozen.
Thanks for this, really informative. I'm in Canada, hoping to build one once I move out of the city (forget making a kiln in this city, not even allowed to have a fireplace).
The discussion at the end is quite important. Most backyard DIY projects I see on the internet don’t discuss modifying how one has to adapt the build to different climates. In my case I would have moisture, snow, and deep frost (=frost heaving) to contend with. So a DIY kiln would cost much more after you factor in the cost of a stable base, and a weather-proof and heat proof enclosure.
Hey Andy, what cones can you fire to? I believe doing a cement outer coating of the kiln would insulate the pottery a lot nicer and allow for a more stable and easier firing method.
I never use cones so can't answer that question directly. I do use a thermocouple to measure temps in my kiln and I regularly hit about 850 to 900 C. I am sure I could go higher if I wanted to and spent more time at it, but those temps are perfectly fine for the pottery I am making.
Great build Andy, we can't wait to see it get fired up. Great point about protection from rain, here in New England it would need its own enclosure. If you need more heat a few mouse holes in the firebox should do the trick.
Yes, I did exactly that, check out the video I made that shows the improvements I made to this kiln ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-b-qNKqwaiy8.html
Hi Andy! How high up does the barbeque rack need to be from the bottom of the kiln and can you have two racks for extra pottery? So you can fire items without glaze on the bottom rack and with it on the top rack? How hot does the top end of your kiln get? Any suggestion on how to get it to burn to at least 1,000 celsius? What did you use for a lid on this kiln? Thanks and great video!
I'm working on a video about how best to fire a kiln like this. I have never had it up to 1000 C but I do believe it could be done with a little more time and effort. I have never tried two stacks. I was just putting some bricks over the top for a lid but now I am building a little chimney with bricks and find that works much better as it increases draw. You can see this method in this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4z3x8psUUbE.html Like I said I will be making a video showing my thoughts and methods on firing this and getting the most from it.
I'd build double walls an inner and an outer wall with air between and then interlinked with a certain frequency, that should massively improve heat retention.
If you add a metal grate in the front of the fire box, this would keep the fuel off the ground allowing better air flow. Also if you add a fan or something to blow air into the kiln you'd reach much higher temperatures..(Like a rocket stove.) Good luck with the first firing! )
I did some excavating on my property last year. We have a large clay layer in our soil and high amounts of clay in the soil so I saved several buckets of the clay I uncovered. Have always wanted to build a kiln and make some things. I made a brick rocket stove out of bricks laying around a number of years ago to barbecue on. You have inspired me to turn that into a kiln. Also I have always wanted to take some of the extra limestone we have and burn it to make lime mortar to do authentic repairs on my 1899 walls. I wonder if that could be accomplished in one of these little kilns as commercial operations once did on a large scale? Even though we have limestone readily available finding real lime powder or mortar without chemicals added to do burnished lime on walls has become almost impossible in my area.
I have actually wondered about that myself. A quick Google search shows that you only need a temperature of 700 C to produce lime. Although you may need to maintain that tempe over a period of time to make sure your limestone gets heated all the way through.
@@AncientPottery I saw a video of a guy who did it on his farm with a huge bonfire with the rocks piled in the center. Sort of like an outdoor firing of pottery. He stacked the wood very specifically so that it slanted in toward the limestone and would concentrate the embers into the middle as it burned. It worked, but I don’t have the space for a fire that big.
Hi Andy, you said in your last video that when you build your next kiln you will add a fire grill so the ashes drop down away from the wood but you can't put a grill in this.
Hi, Really instructive and good videos for me as a novice but potterycurious guy. Do you have any video about fire bricks? When to use and when not? This is really confusing to me and I do not get a clear picture of this topic. You mention below you are not targeting high temp so firebricks are not needed for this kiln. But you are still targeting 800c for burning pottery right? I guess my question is when to use fire bricks and when can I use regular bricks?
I said "I think" fire bricks are not needed, I have never done this before so I am learning as I go. But it seems logical to me that these bricks were fired much hotter than 800 C when they were made, so I would assume that 800 would not adversely effect the bricks. Only experience will tell me how they work. I certainly could never have made this kiln so cheaply if I had to use fire bricks.
Really enjoyed this video! A wish that came to mine is, I would of loven seeing a fireing in this video. (Maybe a way to improve content) Have a lovely day!
I watched your adobe kiln video and now this one (thanks to Pinterest). The adobe one reminded me of some rocket stove videos that I have watched. Now I'm keen to give this a go. I haven't thrown pots since high school and I'm retired now so I think I had better get to it. Can't wait to go back and catch up on the rest of your videos.
Thanks Andy, another good video. I will accept that Florida may not be as kind as Arizona to this type of kiln. I imagine that just the humidity would not be all that good for it. I have enough to keep me busy without branching out into other methods. I enjoy watching and learning from your videos.
Nice video, I will definitely give it a shot to building my own. Could you recommend a device to measure temperature, possibly one that I could get on Amazon. Thank you so much. Great great video
I am so excited to get started. I have so many questions though; for starters, is a thicker wall on the kiln better, or is it better to be thinner walled?
Thanks! Thicker walls will hold heat better, thinner walls cool more quickly. My earlier kiln was made from adobe with walls that were about twice as think as these and it stayed hot longer. You can see that one here if you haven't already seen it ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XjpxfkSBPgo.html
thank you for such an informative video! like another commenter, i have been planning to build a small wood fire kiln but what i could find online & in books wasn’t exactly suitable for a suburban environment. excited to see how it fires :)
So I made something like this wanted to make a kiln a traditional way but we had a heavy downpour and my mortar washed away and the whole thing collapsed. How do I prevent this in the future?
Hello and thank you for making this video. I live in the city and have a small back patio area, with concrete/pavers down in the ground. I noticed you dug up some ground and placed the bricks in, and I am just wondering if it is still ok to build a kiln without a dirt ground, and if so how would be best to do so. All of the videos I have seen are working on dirt ground. Thanks again!
Nice video! Will this only work for pottery and ceramics? I want to get into lamp work, I'm new to all of this stuff and i cant afford a kiln and i think it would take too much energy anyway. Thanks for the hard work 😄
If you had to do this again, would you leave a couple bricks without mortar to be able to remove them to add air? If so, at what height would you have the non-mortared bricks?
Thank you very much. I watch a lot of these YT walk-throughs and this one was very well made. If I wanted to buy the mortar/adobe by the bag, at say Home Depot or Lowe's, could you give a recommendation as to the brand that I would want?
Howdy Andy, I loved your video and learned a ton... I had a couple questions after watching maybe you could help work through. I am trying to do a lot of research to make the best DIY Smoker, to smoke meat like ribs, brisket, etc. I dove into the kiln design DIY world to better understand a different niche with a relatively similar goal; Design a cheap, safe, effective, and efficient contained heating source. It is worth quickly pointing out the major design differences are going to be related to food safety and design for food use, Lid design, and the lower temps of smoking meat 220-600 degrees operating temps. My questions are as follows: 1. What is the best food safe alternative to mud... I have thrown around the idea of building this kiln around a metal barrel to eliminate this problem of mud crumbling onto the food but this is far more intensive and ultimately more expensive. Is there a good alternative to mud like concrete or some cheap brick mortar that can do fine at my lower operating temperatures? 2. For long term use is it worth building this on a structure of foundational bricks...I imagine getting ash out does not matter as much when making pottery if you can use something to start the flame but in the smoking meat hobby it is super important to sift all charcoal ashes out between smoking's for the flavor of the meat. I will probably design and weld a sifting table for the charcoal to sit on and have holes to sift out the ash... but having a layer of brick underneath may allow me to scrape out any ask build up over time. In your use of the Kiln has cleaning out ask ever come into play or is it just as easy as taking a small shovel and scraping it out and whatever dirt comes along is no worries? 3. One design feature I am a little stuck on is the lid, it would be great for it to be hinged and light enough to move, as well as be insulative and seal against the body of the smoker. Generally lids are shaped like an upside-down bowl to increase the velocity of the smoke coming out of the top and act as a sort of nozzle. I have kind of deduced it has to be metal just because it needs to be formable, mountable, light, but it really gives up a lot on the insulation front... do you have any clay ideas for a lid like this or any other material for that matter? I am sorry for the lengthy essay just thought I would try to gain more insight from any expert I can reach. I hope you keep having a great time and keep up the amazing content, I will be sure to stay tuned :)
Great stuff Andy! Finding wood to burn is pretty a daunting task where I live. May I ask if it is possible at all to use gas fire to do the job? I would appreciate a quick reply. Thanks and Regards. Sham Naarai.
For a damp climate, what about using perlite concrete for the mortar? I've read it can stand the heat better, as the perlite insulates the cement from the heat better than traditional mortar of sand and Portland cement, the idea being that only the innermost cement gets exposed to the full heat. I've never tested this myself, but I get enough rain and humidity that I think I'd have trouble with mud mortar.
Perhaps that would work, I don't have enough experience to say. But give it a shot and let me know how it works out. This mud mortar would be a real problem in a damp climate for sure.
I’ve started something similar. I made mud bricks interior with straw like they did for early colonial ovens. And then did a brick with mud mortar exterior. I haven’t quite got enough mud bricks to finish it. I’m wondering about fire temps. Will these bricks hold up to heat? Another option I was think of using fire bricks but those aren’t cheap. I can’t wait to see you light this one. I’ve been waiting until spring to finish and try mine. Also what do you plan on using on top, to create a chamber?
Yes think those bricks will hold up fine. I will cover the top with some paver bricks I have. Wait for my kiln firing video that will be coming out in a couple weeks.
Hi Andy, great video. Quick question, if you don’t mind. Sweet dungarees where’d you get them? Look like a sturdy pair, I myself am in the market for a new pair would appreciate a recommendation. Thanks again for the video.
Is there a way to reasonable test the clay for arsenic and other chemicals before using them as food grade or do the extreme temps burn everything away?
Maybe, but I wouldn't know. Our ancestors ate off of natural earthenware and they weren't dropping like flies from their pottery. I would assume that it is generally safe and like a lot of things in life, just take my chances with the rest.
@@AncientPottery our ancestors didn’t have crazy pharmaceutical companies traversing the earth with their poisons or airplanes flying all over the skies, though, but I understand the sentiment: “Do your best and don’t sweat the rest.” Still for all we know there were advanced civilizations to rival ours in the very distant past that polluted the earth as well.
You can definitely bisque fire, you will need temperatures of around 1300 C to melt glaze. I have never had this kiln that hot but I make earthenware so I have never tried either.
Can you recommend a thermocouple that will work for this kind of kiln and is relatively inexpensive? Or point me in the general direction. It seems the probe needs to be ceramic?
I just want to make sure, red clay dirt and just reg sand from anywhere? And would it be OK to use the flat stepping stones as a base (floor) or just leave it all on ground? 🤔
I live in phoenixish, i would really love to know more about where, more specifically, uou go to gather your raw materials. I dont know much about oublic lands and i feel like everywhere i look there are mo trespassing signs
I live in the volcano area of the Pacific NW. We do not have actual soil in my area unless we make it ourselves: compost and other ingredients. What I'm wondering is that our soil is primarily volcanic pumice. What could I use as a bonding agent with the volcanic pumice to make the mud to build a pottery kiln?
No idea, in fact the Pacific NW tends to get a lot of rainfall so the mud mortar may wash away rather quickly in that kind of climate. If you don't have access to any wild clay the best choice might be either to buy clay or to buy mortar. But really I am just guessing here.
I'll take that like, thanks. I grew up between Arizona and Washington State, but I have lived a few years in Louisiana and Oklahoma and that southern accent is contagious.
Do you think you could semi waterproof the kiln with a light render to protect the mud in a wet climate? Or would the external part of the kiln reach too high of a temperature for a cement based render mixture? Thanks
I think that could be problematic. Around here they will sometimes coat an adobe building with cement based plaster in an attempt to keep the moisture out. This can cause big problems as any moist that gets in, either through wicking up out of the ground or through small cracks in the plaster, cannot get out and will slowly dissolve the wall from the inside. So they say it is better to coat them with a breathable plaster such as lime plaster so that moisture can escape.
Yes, refractory mortar would be perfect for a project like this, I was just trying to show how it could be done on the cheap and refractory mortar is a bit pricey.
