thin kilns?

[coppercone2]

So I have read the kanthal wire equations for kilns and they specify a maximum surface load of heat for a furnace and the equations are typically volumetric, i..e you find surface area of kiln, use wire gauge, etc.

Fairly easy if not a bit tedious to design a kiln. You can do it in a few hours.

Do all these equations hold true for 'odd' shapes that you don't typically associate with kilns? My idea was to make a dissimilar sheet metal joiner, so say you want to make a copper-steel sheet bond,

it would be like a panini press, so the kiln would be really wide but short.

do you need to derate anything for this non convectional design?

Or if you wanna build a kiln that conforms around some funny shape thats thin, like a U.

The idea being so you dont need to heat up a giant volume to heat a thin bit of sheet metal.


http://www.west-l.com/uploads/tdpdf/06080303.pdf

[KL27x]

Do all these equations hold true for 'odd' shapes that you don't typically associate with kilns? My idea was... the kiln would be really wide but short.

Surface area:volume goes up when you make your kiln elongated; hence, you have limited gains in making a kiln in a funny shape. Greater surface area means greater loss to the environment.

Equations are fine for gross estimation. Make it. Then optimize.

[coppercone2]

the idea was actually to make a kind of lego kiln that you can build around a object you want to make out of two layers, with little ceramic blocks that fit into pegs with ceramic rods wrapped in wire around them so you build up a kiln around your oddly shaped part.

Like the X + Y would be variable but the Z would be set (perhaps make 3 different coil lenghts) so you can make a contour around whatever.

The power supply would need to be a beast though to handle the various combinations. or just multiple supplies

it would only work on parts that are like a curve which is extended on 1 axis in a strait line though, anything more seems like the mechanical work would be difficult and you would need angle pieces and shit.


So you can do a bimetalic bracket. If its just a thin bit your limited to working with flat sheets that you need to bend after
After the heating layer is assembled you would just put a buncha dummy insulator blocks to fill it into a solid cube.
I imagined like a big work station with a buncha these bits in a tool chest and a big fire brick table top etc.