Just Another Way to Procrastinate Kiln Building

I often walk around in my life with the feeling that other people know something about living that I don't. Like, maybe there was an instruction manual, and my kit just didn't come with it. I always feel like I am just bluffing my way through, vastly relieved that so far no one has noticed that I am not, in fact, a grown-up at all.

I might buy that most people feel this way, more or less, but some clearly don't. I have a friend who, some 3o years ago, bought a shell of an old farmhouse, with no plumbing, wiring, or insulation. He proceeded to install all of those things himself, despite having no education in such matters. He just assumed he could do it, and then he did it.

I particularly envy people who have that kind of confidence about kiln building. My old kiln is demolished, and we took apart the plumbing today, and I have the brick, so there are really no obstacles to construction. Still I linger over The Kiln Book, hoping one more review will cause me to understand such passages as:

The K factor is a measure of orifice efficiency, based upon its shape and approach angles against a frictionless orifice. This efficiency has a value from 0.4 to 1.3. The best atmospheric burners have a value or 0.8 to 0.85

Actually typing it out seemed to have a salutatory effect of my comprehension. Perhaps instead of reading it, I should be copying it over!

Anyway sometimes naming my anxiety decreases it; and tomorrow I must decide the placement of the burners & ports, an necessary step after which I can begin placing and levelling the cinder blocks upon which the kiln will rest. Then come two layers of brick, and then the walls. I will begin by pretending to assume that I can do this thing, and then I will do it.