Kiln door for Nyle

brdmkr · August 25, 2008, 01:12:39 PM

My DH kiln should arrive this week. I will have to store it until I can get the chamber built, but I am hoping to get a good bit of the work done this weekend. I have been looking at the Nyle plans, but the plans are really lacking for a front loading door (they show it as an option, but they do not discuss span and hinges). I would like to be able to load the kiln using my FEL, but I am concerned that if the doors span 17' that they would be mighty heavy on the hinges. I have been kicking around ideas for removable panels as well, but I am not sure that I could get those to seal up and they would likely be pretty heavy. Someone else suggested putting the doors on overhead runners, but I can't see how to make that seal-up. Does anyone have any pics of front-opening doors on a kiln? Am I making too big of a deal about the span and weight on the hinges?

ARKANSAWYER · August 25, 2008, 01:48:46 PM

Hang them on over head tracks and angle them out. When you hang the door brace them up and agin the building and try to have a 6 inch over lap. When you open the doors they will slide out away from the building some with the angle and close up tighter that way. You will have to latch them at the bottom and middle to keep them tight.
The other way is to hinge them like an airplane hanger. Where they accordian in the middle and fold up out of the way. SII has kilns like that.

Kcwoodbutcher · August 25, 2008, 03:13:49 PM

I have mine on an overhead runner and it works great. The door is not attached directly to the trolley. There are several inches of threaded rod between the door and the trolley. This allows me to swing the door out slightly when I move it. When it is in the closed position I seal it with clamps in several locations.

Brad_S. · August 25, 2008, 10:31:43 PM

My kiln is in a pole barn so I hinged the door on the top and open and close it with a winch in the pole barn rafters.
The door doesn't seat well when lowered so I use the Bobcat with forks to lift and set it so it does.

solidwoods · August 26, 2008, 07:35:09 AM

I use a recycled Styrofoam filled hollow core door, 6" thick. They are removable with no hinges. To me hinges are for doors that get opened allot not doors that are opened once a month or more.
I also like the remote mc. pins in the wood so mc. can be checked outside the kiln.
jim

David Freed · August 28, 2008, 06:35:43 PM

I have a 24'x10' door that weighs over 600 pounds on an overhead track with 2 - 4 roller trolleys. I have a cable going up through a guide to each trolley with a handcrank to raise it. The door swings out and clears the building when you crank it up. To let it down, you push in on the bottom and turn the crank. I use pole barn door latches to pull it tight and seal it. I might get a picture tomorrow.

brdmkr · August 28, 2008, 08:33:08 PM

David,

I REALLY would appreciate a pic if you can manage it. I think I almost understand ;D

I hope to form for the concrete over the weekend. I heard from Bailey's today that it would be a couple of weeks before it gets here.

David Freed · August 29, 2008, 10:47:09 PM

I think these are good enough to let you see how I did it. I took them in the dark, but the flash did a pretty good job.

EDITED

Optimizing problems. Scroll down to my next post.

beenthere · August 29, 2008, 11:43:24 PM

David
You don't have to make them "small" to put in your gallery. They can be 450 pixels 'large'.
Many pics posted on the forum are not small.

Doing that resizing first and then saving, will make the file size near the size permitted here.

Go to 'help' button above for the easy procedure. It is good for sending pics via email too, as the new digital cameras record huge files that take long computer times to send around.

David Freed · August 30, 2008, 09:04:02 AM

I have never had this problem before. The optimizing program I usually use will reduce a picture to 1/10 or smaller of its original size. This time it would only reduce my pics by 3 or 4 percent; not nearly enough. When I put them on one of my web pages, the optimizer in my website design program reduced them to about 1/4 original size, but still not small enough to fall into the picture guidelines here at FF, (44 kb - 450 pixels).

This morning I downloaded the xat optimizer program. I couldn't get the original photos small enough to fall in the guidelines, so then I got the idea to use xat to resize the already optimized pics from my website. FINALLY I got them small enough.

As you can see, I built it to work, not look good.