Anyone know a good KAO wool supplier?

[Alondro]

I used to be able to find everything at a place in NJ about an hour and a half from me, but they stopped selling high-temp refractory brick and large sheets of KAO wool. Now, the brick I can supplement with junk brick and just toss it when it starts to break down. But the KAO wool is something I can't do without!

I need enough to make a furnace of the typical propane-fired type.

 

[Golddigger76]

On Amazon for very cheap, they have several different thicknesses and sizes but I'm not sure about the quality because I never did order it from Amazon.

 

[Alondro]

On Amazon for very cheap, they have several different thicknesses and sizes but I'm not sure about the quality because I never did order it from Amazon.

Thanks! I did manage to find a couple good sheets on Ebay from reputable this morning. Not expensive there either!

But firebrick's another story. Those things are crazy expensive now. I think I'll just use scrap baked bricks I can find in plenty, and toss them when they break down. The brick kiln/furnace/forge/oven I'm building is a loose brick chimney-like structure which I can adapt to all sorts of purposes. It also means it's easy to replace damaged bricks. Double-walled, with the internal layer being made of the trashiest bricks so I don't care when they crumble!

The KAOwool furnace can also go inside and become a 3rd layer, plus it'll be so well-insulated it'll hold vastly more heat, AND I don't have to worry about knocking it over since it'll have 2 tons of bricks supporting it.

 

[Golddigger76]

I just seen a whole box of fire bricks at my local tractor supply store a few weeks ago that were marked $1.99 each, I should have bought them for the furnace that I am planning to build but I wanted to line it with actual fireplace mortar on kao wool.
We have been in the process of moving to our new farm and trying to get situated pluplus I still need to build a new laboratory that is strictly for refining.
The bricks that I seen for cheap were about a inch and a half thick and there must have been 60 bricks per box.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

The fire bricks I've seen at my Tractor Supply are the hard, heavy type. They conduct much more heat than the soft, light ones. Yours may be different.

Dave

 

[Shark]

I just seen a whole box of fire bricks at my local tractor supply store a few weeks ago that were marked $1.99 each, I should have bought them for the furnace that I am planning to build but I wanted to line it with actual fireplace mortar on kao wool.
We have been in the process of moving to our new farm and trying to get situated pluplus I still need to build a new laboratory that is strictly for refining.
The bricks that I seen for cheap were about an inch and a half thick and there must have been 60 bricks per box.

Most of the time those are brownish in color and are very hard. It will take a lot of heat to warm them up enough to get a crucible to melting temperatures, even with a Kawol liner. I use hard brick in the bottom and the soft furnace brick for the tops and sides. Even then I am thinking about covering the soft brick in 3000* concrete to help them last longer.

 

[Golddigger76]

Most of the time those are brownish in color and are very hard. It will take a lot of heat to warm them up enough to get a crucible to melting temperatures, even with a Kawol liner. I use hard brick in the bottom and the soft furnace brick for the tops and sides. Even then I am thinking about covering the soft brick in 3000* concrete to help them last longer.

They were the almost white colored and soft enough to carve with a pocket knife.
I might go back to see if they are still in the store and buy them if so.

 

[Shark]

White and soft enough to cut with a pocket knife sounds like the good ones.

 

[goldshark]

I buy my firebricks from DFC Ceramics Canon City, Colorado..They have a variety of the light weight , insulating firebricks. Some are rated for 2300 F, some for 2700 F. Joe Bob says check them out. Many good assay supplies also, including crucibles, chems, etc. They may also have Kaowool, I haven't checked. Maybe Legend, in Nevada.

 

[Alondro]

The fire bricks I've seen at my Tractor Supply are the hard, heavy type. They conduct much more heat than the soft, light ones. Yours may be different.

Dave

Hmmm, Tractor Supply, eh? There's one only 15 mins from me. Conducting more heat is not an issue for me, since the inner walls are surrounded by other brick. It's double-walled, and the outer shell is a double wall itself!

Since I'm using it primarily for melting aluminum and copper, and heating with free scrap wood and coal, these hard ones would work fine.

 

[goldshark]

Those hard/heavy firebricks take forever to get up to heat, then transfer the radiation immensely. I had one sitting on some cinder blocks. After firing and turning off, about 8 hours elapsed before I noticed smoke from the furnace area. It had started some grasses on fire that I hadn't raked past 3 feet from the perimeter of it. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside, or Kaowool. My electric furnace has a metal shell, 22 gauge, then 2" Kaowool, and 2" of 2300 F soft brick lining. You could fire on a wood floor, in your house, and not worry about fire, but I still advise against such practice.

 

[Alondro]

Those hard/heavy firebricks take forever to get up to heat, then transfer the radiation immensely. I had one sitting on some cinder blocks. After firing and turning off, about 8 hours elapsed before I noticed smoke from the furnace area. It had started some grasses on fire that I hadn't raked past 3 feet from the perimeter of it. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside, or Kaowool. My electric furnace has a metal shell, 22 gauge, then 2" Kaowool, and 2" of 2300 F soft brick lining. You could fire on a wood floor, in your house, and not worry about fire, but I still advise against such practice.

My furnace is in the middle of the yard, not near anything. It's sitting on a 3-inch thick concrete slab, with two layers of brick on top of that.

I built this thing so heavily layered, I could use it as a blast furnace at this point! XD