historical footage of first big fire

[christo]

Here is the first big fire from almost a year ago.

[dbhansen]

That's cool! I've never seen what the fires look like before. Can't wait to fire mine up. Thanks for sharing!

[mfiore]

Looks great! What are the wires we see crossing over the opening of the oven?

[nissanneill]

A big fire, no that's not a big fire. But I can't show you a bigger one but I'll bet you have set the scene to be outdone by someone.
I was expecting to see flames roaring out of the front arch.
Oh, incidentally Christo, I lucked out on that TR4 hardtop. Saw a triumph enthusiast and he maintains that the people who would have one will leave it in ther shed roof for their 'next car'.
He will also look around and ask a few questions. Will keep in touch.


Neill

[christo]

I've had a few larger fires than that since the first one. that was the first time I had flames following the contour of the oven dome. It also had a stratification of outgoing smoke and incoming air that did not show up well on the video.

I would like to see the down under version of a Big Fire. Kinda reminds me of the crocodile mans big knife.

One scary large fire resulted from coking many many chucks of wood. I woke up a couple hours later with flames shooting out of the front opening of the oven... Seems that coking works rather well. I put making a door on top of the priroity list after that. I was also glad to see my oven lights survived that kind of mistreatment.

It also takes a large fire to flaten wine bottles - I think I'll film that process and see if I can keep one from stress fracturing by leaving them in the oven with the door closed for a few days.

Good news on the Triumph roof - lets hope someone has fallen in love with MG's.

Christo

[Modthyrth]

Flatten wine bottles??? Do elaborate! I'm already imagining all the crafting possibilities!

If you have any leftover vermiculite or blanket, immerse/cover the glass asap so it will cool down more slowly. And then yeah, a long slow cooldown in the oven could do a good job annealing the glass.

[christo]

We were joking around with the thermometer and decided to see how hot we could get the oven (with out using the leaf blower - that experiment has yet to be tried - at least in my oven). So we had a huge scary fire trying to max out the IR thermometer and then wondered what we were going to do with the fire.

We decided to melt bottles or try to. From my boyscout days, I remember bottles cracking in the fires and well, that can of Off is a whole nuther story.

Very carefully - and me with safety glasses on and a coat - roll 3 wine bottles right in to the belly of the beast and close the insulating door.

Went back later (after forgetting about them for over an hour) and my door was no longer in one piece - the screws had gotten so hot they burned their way out of the plywood face, so I had to pry the insulation board/expanded metal assy from the opening.

I still have yet to redesign/repair the door... but I digress.

2 bottles were completely flattened, one looked like a prune. My guess is the glass had slightly different melting points or it was in a draft from the door.

With glasses and coat, I pulled them out with the pizza peel and immeadiatly started to hear them go clink clink clink. Too late now. After they cooled they fell apart in very neat puzzle-like chunks. But in places the glass was completly fused together.

I'm very glad they did not go liquid on me, That would have been really bad if they stuck to the floor of my oven (which is why I pulled them out in the first place).

I found some wine bottle molds for sluffing wine bottles on the internet. I'm going to order a couple and see what we can do.

Christo

[mfiore]

Christo,

Now I enjoy a good "science" experiment as much as the next guy, but I have to ask - How many glasses of wine before this endeavor?

[dmun]

Slumping is fun: you can make forms from any clay, as long as it's properly dried. Glass sold for stained glass work slumps better than window glass. And, as you have learned, tempering is very important: best leave it in the oven as it cools down. Proper glass slumpers have a second oven at a lower temperature for tempering. Search Warm Glass for more info

[jwnorris]

Originally Posted by dmun

Slumping is fun: you can make forms from any clay, as long as it's properly dried. Glass sold for stained glass work slumps better than window glass. <snip>

It never ceases to amaze me the wealth of knowledge that can be gained just hanging out here.

As for the number of glasses that you must drink, it should be enough to empty the bottle.

J W