Now for the bad parts...the pictures speak for themselves...
Yup, it's as bad as it looks. Many of the bricks just melted/marsh mellowed!!! The worse part is that they fused together so repair will be a bear. Such is life. I consulted lots of people about this is what I've learned. The wonderful helpful people gave me tons of useful info on the Facebook soda and salt firing page so I'd suggest you read up on it there to get all the details. The gist of it is that these first 288 bricks were used ones I purchased knowing they had been used as the subfloor and outer layer of a salt fired kiln for 10 years or so. They were jet dp heavy duty high fire brick and would under normal circumstances hold up great to cone 10 firings but these, though they looked perfect, were spent. I have 3 other sources of used hard brick in the kiln and those all held up fine. This batch was just done. I couldn't have afforded to build this kiln had I not purchased used brick so I don't regret my choices, this was just bum unlucky. The gentleman who sold them to me felt awful and even offered to reimburse me but it is no more his fault than mine own. Perhaps I could have prevented this by testing the brick by firing them to cone 10 in another kiln first but not all of them failed so the testing would only had helped had I tested the right bricks. My conclusion is that I should have tested them but it may still not have prevented this.
Well, I built this kiln and I am very proud of how it performed. If I built it, I can and will repair it! ;)
Stay tuned for repair posts. One of the kind kiln builders (thank you Mathew) who shared his expertise when I started my build has directed me towards a great inexpensive source for new high fire heavy duty brick for my repairs. I am on my way this Friday to pick them up. In the meantime I have been throwing another whole load of pots and they are just waiting to be fired in my "new" repaired kiln.
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