StoneCarver's Kiln Build

[StoneCarver]

When I bought my house, there was a lot of 3/8inch thick boards of foam insulation in the basement used in all kinds of weird ways. So, I ripped it all out and put it in my woodhouse. There it laid for a number of years till I came across y'alls information regarding kilning tobacco. Using Deluxestogie's exoskeleton as a template, I figured out a way to layer those boards of insulation. I found four of them stacked is the same thickness of a 2x4. I built my kiln so that its a total of 8 insulation boards thick. I glue the boards together with wood glue and use silicon to seal it to the 2x4s. In this picture angle, you can see how I fitted the 2x4s together to form the frame. The rest was cutting and sanding the boards so that they fitted in the frames. Before assembling the 2x4s, I treated all the wood with bee propolis varnish to prevent molding and increase water resistance. I'm still working on fitting foam into the door frame; so its not completed yet. I'll be wrapping the kiln up in reflective aluminum/mylar insulation that I have left over from coating my basement ceiling.

 

[StoneCarver]

Almost done putting the foam in the door frame. Just one more layer to go.
I'll be so glad to be done with cutting foam.

 

[StoneCarver]

Here's a pic of the kiln upside down and mostly covered in the reflective insulation. You can see the caster wheels I placed under it. Of course, that's the door standing on its side in front of the kiln. I've coated the door and kiln inside and out with that reflective insulation. Mostly to protect the foam from wear and tear but I do hope it helps reflect infrared heat throughout the kiln. That's what this stuff was engineered to do.

 

[StoneCarver]

The door is no longer a jar. whew, really finally getting somewhere with this thing.



I got a single burner stove to heat the interior. The stove is set on a large grinding disk because the disk can handle high heat. The disk in turn is sitting on a patch of foil insulation which is not glued down. This makes it easy to slide the stove around on the floor to get it in the exact position I want it; it also reduces the damage the grinding disk can cause against the foil insulation that is glued down.



I've been test running the stove the past couple days. I started out with the stove on its lowest setting as I didn't want to risk a melt down and fire. I put a smoke detector on top of the stove just in case. The lowest setting on the stove didn't get the kiln up to 125F. So, I kept creeping the heat up till it did. I had planned on using a humidifier to humidify the interior of the kiln but clumsy me dropped it just as I was about to put water in it for its first run. Of course right? Although plastic, the water reservoir shattered when it hit the concrete floor of my basement. There goes that plan. grumble grumble. Ok, backup plan it is. I put five 1cm thick metal rods on the stove and a glass cook pot on top of the metal rods as a makeshift slow cooker. Sitting on the metal rods, the glass won't be in direct contact with the heating surface of the stove. That way, in case the water in the pot evaporates away leaving the cook pot dry, there's less chance of the pot shattering. With the cook pot filled with water on the stove, the humidity in the kiln gets up to 98%. Also, the stove takes much longer to get the kiln up to temperature than without the cook pot and water. I put in an order to buy another humidifier. I'd like tighter control of the humidity than that.

In the top picture, you can see the device I chose to use to monitor and control heat and humidity. It can control two different devices independently. It only has one probe which measures both heat and humidity in the kiln. The device was mainly manufactured for small scale mushroom growing but has wide enough parameters to set that it can be used for a tobacco kiln. Its made by Elitech but I'm not sure its still in manufacture. With using this stove to heat the kiln, the Elitech control device keeps the temperature within 123 to 127F. I think that operational range is acceptable.

I still need to put in the remaining shelf supports in the kiln and a way to keep the tobacco leaves from coming in contact with the walls of the kiln.
Then it ought to be ready for loading with tobacco after thoroughly test running it for a week or so.

 

[vktr]

The door is no longer a jar.

That reminded me of Bill Hicks LOL