by rjdudley » Thu Mar 20, 2014 4:27 pm
Hi Bobwieser, sorry for the delay in answering, but, we've had some tough family issues come up recently.
Anyway, I still love the Kastolite. The stuff is/was damn heavy, but, it seems to be holding up really well. There are places inside the burn chamber which have come apart a bit, but, I attribute that to my lack of good tamping and vibrating when I built it. Matt gave me some good pointers about that and so I'm thinking these points of weakness were just air pockets of some type.
I made mine two inches thick, looking back now I would have gone thicker. At least 3 inches. The reason is that I'd like to keep as much heat in the chamber for as long as possible before the heat migrates out through the walls of the burn chamber.
I'm not sure where you are in NH, but, I'm in Gilmanton and you're welcome to come by anytime and see ours.
Ray