The Complete DIY Kiln

 Whilst looking at the process of going from a 3d printed object to a cast metal one I realised that I was actually going to need 2 kilns, one to burn out any wax/pla/resin from my lost material cast, and one to heat the actual metal that I'm looking to pour. As I don't really have the money to buy the top of the line for ever piece of equipment that I'm going to need for this process (apparently there's a lot more going on than I first realised) I'm going to attempt to make a lot of what I'm going to be using and an electric kiln is one of those things.

Inspiration
 As with everything I've seen a lot of videos on youtube on how to put together an electric kiln and they don't look too difficult to be honest (famous last words). Here are some of those resources that convinced me this was a good idea:

• Youtube Link
  •   This guy uses a big steel bucket and changes what he's doing a little whilst building which is always nice to see as it gives you something to avoid in your own kiln build. This video looks at the electronics enough to be able to replicate
• Youtube Link
  •   This is a much more polished build and final product so it's great for inspiration but it doesn't go into some of the finer details as much

Design
  Even with the above inspiration I needed to settle on a design and I found the following instructables article that gives the details of a really small, simple build. Naively I thought that this would be an excellent way to go but if I added another 3 bricks I could get more height without too much fuss. After ordering 10 bricks for this I realised again that if I put another brick on both the top and the bottom layer that I could get a width that should be able to take any of the castings that I'd make and be far more useful. This is the kind of thing that I'm going for (but filled in and completed):

Equipment
  There's no point in documenting this process if I don't get down a list of the things that I've used and had to swap out for other things along the way! I'll keep adding to this list as 

• Structure (£109)
  • 14 x Fire Bricks and Mortar - £70? (I had to double-order so things got a little confused with the overall cost)
    • These I got from Vitcas, a lovely company down in Bristol. the P&P + tax felt a bit high but the product prices are incredible and a lot of 3rd parties supply vitcas products so it's good to simply go straight to the source. Because of the tax and P&P though it can be worth planning out your build and getting everything at once.
    • Bricks: £2.50 ea Here
    • Mortar: £15 Here   
  • Perforated Angle: £21 (4m) Here 
    • This will create the legs for our kiln and give some protection around the outer corners as fire bricks are very delicate
  • Threaded Stud: £12 (4m) Here and Bolts :£5.50 (20) Here
    • This will let us tighten the angle together to hold everything in place.
• Door (£20..)
  • Fabric Insulation: £ Here
    • and 
  • Aluminium Sheet, Hinges and a Latch: £ Here, £10 Here and £10 Here
    • we need to make the door out of something, I'm sure you can find cheaper hinges but I grabbed a pack for future projects. The latch is probably a bit overkill as well but I liked that these are adjustable for any heat movement and again, there's 3 more than you'll need for this project.
• Electronics (£75)
  • Furnace Temperature Controller (PID): £37 Here  
    • I could've gotten hold of a much cheaper PID than the one that I got as I did see some available that would've done the job for around £13 but this seemed like a decent upgrade and came with the solid state relay that I'd need as well, including a heatsink for it!.
  • Thermistor temperature sensor: £18 Here  
    • The videos and instructionals above all call for a K type thermistor and there were a few available for around £8 that would have done the job but they were all coming from mainland Europe and would've taken weeks to arrive so I went for a slightly more expensive (but much more amazon prime) S type sensor.
    • From what I could tell the difference between a K type and an S type sensor other than the price, is the temprature range and actually an S type is a little more suitable to this kind of application as long as your PID is capable of reading one and you've got the extra cash to spare.
  • Heating Element Coil: £10 Here
    • This looks to be the same as listed in the resources above - let's see how it does!.
  • Heat Resistant wire: £10 Here
    • This just makes sense to have, everything's going to be hot and I just hope that this stands up to the heat.

Build

• Bricks mortared
• bricks routed
• bricks drilled
• PID wired link
• Themistor connected
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