shopping trip

Today I drove to Portland for supplies.
At Hi Temp NW, I picked up 3 buckets of mortar ( sometimes I think my kiln is drinking mortar) and a box of insulation fiber.

My bricklaying & mortaring ability has improved immensely in the past few weeks.
I expect to be using a significantly smaller amount of mortar than the last couple of weeks.
Learned that I will not be mortaring the arch - it is to be laid loose to allow for expansion during firing, and contraction upon cooling.

Insulation fiber now comes in a 'much-less carcinogenic' form for about $15 more a box.
Because I want to use fiber as a back-up insulation behind hard, then soft bricks, I can use fiber that is rated to a lower temperature: 2300F.
My plan is to back-up the fiber with sheet metal, held in place by angle iron on the kiln corners.
I have left-over sheet metal from taking down my old kiln, and expect to need very few more panels.

The drive up to Portland was on a warm first day of autumn.
I was aware of significant haze in the Willamette Valley and farther south, also.
This evening I heard of wildfires in the mountains that were sending ash as well as smoke into the Oregon valleys.

I am disappointed that readers of this blog cannot post comments for others to read.
If anyone knows of another blog address that allows for comments, please let me know.
I welcome comments at my new pottery email address: susanpotsatgmaildotcom
please substitute@ for at and . for dot.

I read that stops (probably more properly deters) robots & spam from my email address.

I'm looking forward to mortaring tomorrow.
Will have a photo to upload then.