Steel Work

Or working the steel.
In this case, stainless steel.
No, not a bicycle.
Just a sheet of stainless I found that will be used to mount the hood on the kiln.
I mean the Holy Oracle of the Copper Red.
Anyways, I had this sheet of stainless and I needed to cut a puka in it so that the chimney thingy would fit through it.
Seeing as how the chimney thingy gets sort of hot, we couldn't mount it directly next to the roof, so instead it will mount in the stainless sheet.
Like so:



I used a right angle grinder and a cutting wheel to make the well, cuts.
The chimney is ten inches square, so I cut the hole is cut to eleven inches for I didn't think it would be so easy to peel back the stainless and make a bend.
Actually it was sort of easy for what I did was make a shallow "cut" where the bend is:



That made them flaps bend up right nicely.
The chimney will sit in the hole and the sheet will sit on the roof hopefully insulating the wooden roof from the heat.
I say again: hopefully.
Then there was the hood bracket thingy which needed to be cut down.
The bracket thingy sits directly on the kiln and supports the hood. Unfortunately the last place the kiln resided was very high and now the place where the kiln resides is very low so the bracket was cut down and new supports welded in place:



I had to bust out my Jedi Skilz for this.
It did little good for I managed to weld the vise grip to the frame instead.
Twice.
I did however lay down a nice bead.
So after grinding off the vise grip, a little paint was added to protect the welds.
Voila!



The bracket thingy is made from an old bed frame.
It also holds the damper for the kiln.
More on this later.
Next week we mount up the hood and set the chimney through the roof.
We must make sure the interior of the kiln is level, you know the place where the pots are stacked, before we attach the hood and send it skywards.
This may get interesting for it means using a jack to lift the kiln up and putting spacers under the legs.
That should be an adventure.