he just passed his most difficult inspection. THREE CHEERS!!!
what's happening these days is that I did indeed need to employ a third party inspector, partway because of tightening permit requirements and partway because we are a specialized bunch, us wiley potters who make their own kilns. we are a blur on the screen, electrons of questionable location. they just can't keep up. so we passed! a slightly elder statesman named Sandy trundled into the back yard with his computer and a suitcase full of gadgets and gizmos, surprised that it wasn't running. Running! this might be a three-day process, I can't just flip a switch! but we met in the middle, me explaining the ways in which I had incorporated an afterburner, how I had designed it, and how I expected to fire it, and we looked at the burners and took them apart a bit, changed the power cords to ones compliant with UL listings which involved a little bike ride to the hardware store, and over the course of the day ended up trading all kinds of great stories about fire and boats and treasure hunting. then we let the burners run without flame for a while while he gave me a great idea for a cheap oxy meter, and told me to look into creating a reduced atmosphere by replacing some of the gas inside with nitrogen... and suggested thinning the oil with alcohol in winter. (so long as i can get a stir-stick into the tank somehow.) He was impressed with the design and construction... so I'm gloating right here.
SO! I'm going to fire it up, empty, tomorrow. Sandy doesn't buy it that the oil wouldn't ignite below cone 08, so I'm going to try. a potter friend of mine says they do it in Japan.. he says that it's only at first that the burn would be at its least efficient, and that is when it would be producing the most carbon monoxide. then we'll load on monday, tuesday, fire uh, friday, sat? I'm all involved in the Portland Open Studio tour, interviewing people and going to meetings, so there are two of those events in the middle of all this, but that's the idea...
and I still have to get 70 gallons of oil in the bed of my truck into the tank in the garden. Jack and I spent all day battling two shitty hand pumps from harbor freight- trying everything, plan f, plan t, plan x, y, and z, plan arrghh!- so I think that until my new 12V pump that I eventually forced myself to order arrives by stork, I will indeed be siphoning it out a few gallons at a time- if it will out of such a tall tank, and pouring it into a funnel. I suppose there are worse ways to spend a day. this is how people get buff without meaning to..
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