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Introduction

A project log for RepKiln

A small and inexpensive kiln for melting metals and firing clay

matt-mosesMatt Moses 05/01/2017 at 09:360 Comments

The RepKiln project aims to create a small, simple, inexpensive, and relatively safe and clean kiln/furnace/oven for melting aluminum and firing basic pottery. It will be made by assembling homemade firebricks. It should be able to produce more bricks of the type from which it is made, hence the "Rep" (for replication) in the name.

RepKiln got started as a spinoff of a completely different project: a backyard chicken coop. As shown in the before/after pictures, a good chunk of dirt had to be excavated to make a giant sandbox for the chickens to poop in. I live in a densely populated subdivision where the backyards are small and not all the neighbors are thrilled about chickens. Hence chicken poop management is important.

After building the chickens their fantastic sandbox, there was a lot of soil leftover. Due to the small yards (see above) this soil couldn't just be dumped off in a corner and forgotten about. So I hatched a ridiculous scheme to "process" the soil and return/disperse it back into the yard. This process will be described in detail in a later log, but one part of it - the trommel - is shown in the images.

The soil is primarily very thick clay interspersed with rocks. So I ended up with a lot of natural clay that I wasn't sure what to do with. After watching Primitive Technology on Youtube build a kiln out of dirt with his bare hands, I thought it might be fun to try something similar, although not quite so primitive.

The idea is to process the soil into clay, process the clay into bricks, put the bricks together into an (electric) kiln, and use the kiln to do something useful - like fire pottery made from some of the rest of the clay (there's tons of it) or melt aluminum for casting.

Chicken coop before - lacking a giant sandbox in which for chickens to poop.

Sandbox ready for poop.

This is a trommel screen for separating dirt, clay, rocks. I got the idea for this from this youtube video. This particular design uses bicycle rims, chicken wire, leftover landscaping logs, and swivel casters. There are tons of designs for DIY trommels on youtube.

A initial prototype brick mold. This one didn't work so well because it was difficult to release the bricks.

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