"Why" you are asking- and I am sure your first thought is "ease of opening the kiln." Makes sense does it not.
But then you do not live with me-
Mark set this up on the kilns after I managed to knock the kiln lid on myself while loading it one day.
I had been loading bisque kilns for 20 years at the time. ( it's been about 7 years ago)
I was all the way in the bottom when I realized I had bumped the arm holding the lid up.
I tried to come quickly out of the kiln to avoid being slammed by all the weight.
As I came out the lid hit me in the face.
Fortunately for me I was wearing my reading glasses on the tip of my nose.
They saved me from a broken nose.
The lid hit my glasses and then raked down my face. It was not something I would wish on anyone.
Mark was in the other room with his arm in a glaze bucket- 30 gal. He came running in to find me in the floor with my hands on my face. I was sure something was broken and thought I could hold it togeher by holding my face...........
All I could say is to him was; it's bad, take me to the emergency room.
( something he has heard more then once from me...)
He said to let him see and when I did he said- OMG! Well, that was encouraging.
I won't belabor the details. I saw a doctor, went to the health department for a shot and was bruise from under my eyes to below my neck.
Of course I looked as if someone had beat me black and blue.
And, the women at the health department keep saying- "No, Really- tell us what really happened. "
This is why Mark set the kilns up for easy open and took off the arms, which had no safety on them.
We are getting ready to install a new L&L.
As things look the lid appears to be more safe then our old one.
Then again- should I trust them??
Or is it me-
After all how often are you really using this???!!
6 comments:
the studio manager at Claymakers just set up a similar system to keep this from happening to one of us loading kilns. It's easy to do, and scary to think of the pain you must have gone through! Makes me cringe to think of it!
Yikes - Meredith -- that's really horrible. Those lids are so heavy. I say add the safety system to the new kiln.
That was a bitchin' bruise you were sporting back then. Can we have the knife through the hand story next? You tell the best bedtime stories!
Oh my goodness, I am so glad you were ok, that'd be enough to make me want someone else do all the loading.
I am looking at my Skutt kiln and it just has one little piece of metal that keeps the lid from falling down, that is a good idea you've got there; I'm going to show it to Gary and see what we can rig up.
I have found out that other people have had the lid fall while they are loading- I do recomend this.
A foot note- Note the nail to hang the weight on after the lid is down. Then drop the weight when you want the lid to go back up. Easy to move up and down after that.
damn! why trust the new one if you already have the pulley system in place?
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