Digging a drainage trench around the building site
Chopping timber for the frame
Stuck on trees
Stumps 2 months after cutting
14 months after cutting (from last year)
hammering in a short piece of wood to form the post hole
Putting the post in place
Sharpening stone chisel
carving a mortise
Making a blow pipe
This is the same wood I used for wattle frames in earlier huts. It's hollow with a soft pith core.
Putting clay on to form a fire proof nozzle
A small hole causes the air speed to increase
Putting hot coals into the mortise
Blowing the coals causes the mortise to burn and enlarge as well as fire hardening it to prevent the wood splitting.
Scraping the burnt wood out of the mortise
Horizontal beams in place
Cutting lawyer cane with hand axe instead of hatchet (to save hatchet blade from damage on rocks).
Lashing roof timbers with lawyercane
Putting rafters on
Tying rafters to beams (prevents posts from leaning inwards under weight).
Frame complete
Making lawyer cane basket
The clay is in the creek next to the tile hut
Digging firebox for kiln
Green twigs form arch of firebox
Clay from creek
Mud forms the rest (to save precious clay)
Floor of the kiln is 50 cm x 50 cm
16 holes are made in floor
Holes are enlarged to ensure flames can get through
Mud walls of kiln are about 12.5 cm thick
Having fire dries the layers faster
Walls are 50 cm tall then are domed in slightly
Making grate bars for fire box
Grate bars help the wood burn more efficiently
The kiln draws a fairly good draft
Pick out stones and sticks
Crush previous broken pottery and mix with clay to prevent clay from cracking.
Lawyer cane frame for tiles
flat stone, tile frame and tile form
wood ash to stop clay from sticking
Clay is pressed into frame
Shifted onto form
Smoothed
Set out to dry
A batch of 30 tiles took less than a day to make
But they kept being disolved in the rain and had to be shifted to the tile hut when semi dry
Here they could dry near the fire out of the weather
The under floor heating system helped speed up dryng
When completely dry the tiles were stacked into the kiln
Standing dead wood makes the best firewood
Small sticks are the best fuel for kilns
Broken tiles are put on to hold in the heat
firing took 5 hours
2 columns of upside down tiles are laid with narrow ends pointing down into the tiles below to funnel water down the roof
Then a column of right side up tiles are laid over the gaps with the narrow ends pointing up under the tiles above to keep water out of the gaps below
The interlocking tiles stay in place due to weight and friction
Remaking tiles that were disolved by rain before they could be fired
2nd firing: 4.5 hours
3rd firing: 3.5 hours
A row of tiles was used to cover the gap at the ridge of the roof
A scorpion came out of the roof due to the heat of the kiln
4th firing: 4.5 hours (due to wet fire wood)
5th firing: 3.5 hours
A fire and water proof shed for future projects