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Can you use durock as the bottom of a vitrigraph kiln instead of fiber board?

StaceyG wrote:Can you use durock as the bottom of a vitrigraph kiln instead of fiber board?

if you mean the cement tile backer board. no. r.

Actually, yes you can.

The photo shows the piece we use. It has been through about 12 sessions.

It cracked from the beginning, but hadn't collapsed (broken apart) at all until I dropped it this morning to take the picture.

The hole was cut with a woodworking hole saw, and we bought small pieces of ceramic trim tile at Home Depot to lift the flower pot off of the direct contact to the backer board.

Is it ideal? Perhaps not. But it does work fine.

Guy

Interesting- I'd have thought not because the stuff is not refractory, just flame/fire proof or retardant, but I guess you don't need refractory at the base of a vitrograph. Be a hell of a surprise if the stuff fell apart during a firing though...

I think it depends on whether the Durock is the sole support for glass and pot. If it's fully supported by kilnbrick, or rests on a big enough steel/brick flange and there's some air circulation between pot and Durock, it probably doesn't matter. You'll just get Durock schmutz in your glass when it starts to come apart.

If the pot's only support is Durock, and the collapsing of the Durock would lead to Marty's hell of a surprise (i.e., a big pot of molten glass lands on your head--surprise!!!) then I'd try something else.

Granted the Durock is sitting on what would for all intents be called a flange or lip (about 1.5" all the way around, but I place the pot on strips of tile, which distributes the weight a bit.

As for schmutz getting on the work., Hasn't happened yet. And as I said the cracks started long ago. Plus the glass cools so quickly when it's pulled, it would have to be very hot (or long) plus the schmutz would have to get stuck in some kind of air current as to get blown onto the pulled glass to begin with. So, so far so good.

Interestingly enough, when I picked the thing up yesterday to take the picture, that is when the cracks sort of turned into breaks. (The whole thing has been sitting on the floor for ages.) But even with that happening the fibers in the board have held the board together. I can still pick it up as one piece, albeit a floppy piece.