I was talking to a kiln-repairer this week. He'd recently refurbished a couple of these
Maybe just size. You can use the same size side panels to make different kilns, and the 7-sided one shows as 14.5 inches, while the eight-sided one is 16.5 inches. Maybe they're cutting bevels on standard-size firebricks. Alternately, if one were to mold the sidewalls as planks with an outie-circular edge and innie-circular opposite edge, they'd be easy to mortar together at any angle.
Well, if you want to get technical, the kiln is actually 8-sided. It has a hexagonal box, then a base and a lid. Perhaps only seven sides have heating elements (not the bottom) - hence the name.
The hexagonal shape will heat items inside more evenly from the sides than a box shape.
Beyond that I have no suggestions.
John :-#)#
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Count again. There are seven vertical sides, a bottom and a top.
Standardizing the size of the panels makes sense if destined for either a 110V or 240V country , as would only be run in parallel , if an odd number of panels. Kiln cement covers up all sorts of irregularities, like angled vertical gaps between panels, and refactory bricks can easily be cut, likewise.
Perhaps with standard voltage and wattage and size panels then a
12-sided kiln having 12 panels would be 3x the power of a 4 panel one, probably not far off the requirement. Anything else can be cattered to a great extent, in the on/off programming temperature controlElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.