Kerr 666 Autopsy

I opted to move the Kerr 666 from out behind the door.  Rather unhandy when pouring outside.  Along the way I took it over to the east shop to pour an ant hill.  It came up to 600C and stopped heating.

Today I pulled out the heating element.   

The heating elements are surrounded by thin soft fire brick.

The resistance coil failed inside the ceramic that encased it.  The resistance increases in this section until it self destructed.

There is little damage on the interior side of the element.

The element is laying on its side.   When installed the bottom of the U show here is the oven top.

It is possible that the destructing tin can and the flux mix it contained burned a hole through the element.   The black stain seems to indicate that.

The logical thing to do is to replace the element with coils cut into the fire brick.  If there is room.



But first I may try opening up the wound and crimping the wires together then encasing them in clay or glass of some sort.