My 3-Legged Dome

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

Hi Dino, I do most of my thinking at a Starbucks in Hollywood, close to where I work. Although their coffee is marginal, they provide unlimited napkins there....

Yes, I will lay some kind of a surface flush and right up to the oven floor, but before I do that I'd like to build the area up so I can install a large vent on top.

George

[Raffy]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I like the way the vent landing is turning out. I "tiled" my landing area with firebrick too but I regret using brick for the edge of the landing cause the corners of the brick are chipping due to abuse from the peels. The peels hit the corners especially when I use them for leverage in turning the pizzas.

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I "tiled" my landing area with firebrick too but I regret using brick for the edge of the landing cause the corners of the brick are chipping due to abuse from the peels. The peels hit the corners especially when I use them for leverage in turning the pizzas.

Thanks Raffy, and sorry to hear about the corners chipping. Maybe if I rounded or bullnosed the edges, that might prevent chips from happening. But on the other hand, since my entry is so shallow I won't have that problem with the peel hitting the corners.

George

[fxpose]

No progress to report this holiday weekend due to work, except to remove the form off the front landing and do a little mortar touch up all over...

Peace,
George

[Neil2]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

If you want to continue the thermal break concept, you can leave a gap of about 1 inch or so between the hearth bricks and the landing area. I have this gap on mine (leading down to an ash drop) and it presents no problem at all for working the peel in and out. You would have to clean the gap of ashes from time to time.

I'm impressed with some of the "thinking outside the box" ideas that you have developed. It just goes to show how much individual creativity can go into adapting the basic concepts to suit individual sites.

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

Well, thanks Neil. I've actually incorporated a few ideas from your flying saucer oven build.
But your sonotube design is what originally inspired me to take this route at the end.


I think I found my vent in my back yard. I'll try to salvage this nicely broken, 20 year old, 26" diameter planter and see if it'll work. It's definitely wide enough to span the width of the entry. I will trim it down to fit.
If it works it will be the only genuine Italian component of my wfo...

George

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I did a little work on the vent and laid some firebrick tiles for the vent landing.

I'm not 100% certain if I'll use the terra cotta vent though...

George

[WoodchuckDad]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

don't know if that will work but it certainly is clever.

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

don't know if that will work but it certainly is clever.

Well, I can't really come up with a reason why it wouldn't work. The top (bottom of planter) will be trimmed.
I already figured out a way to properly mount it and the chimney pipe onto it as well.
My only concern is the potential for some major cracks which I'm pretty certain will happen. Perhaps I should split it in two or three pieces by cutting vertical control breaks.

But like I mentioned in my previous post I might end up not using the planter after all and going with the more conventional route, building up firebricks.

George

[Tscarborough]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on it, I think it will have a very short life.

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on it, I think it will have a very short life.

Thank you. That's exactly what I needed to hear. I'll scrap the planter and go with firebricks.
The last thing I want to do is break the stucco, tear through some insulation, and replace the vent in a couple of years.

George

[Tscarborough]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I meant weeks, not years.

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

I meant weeks, not years.

Well, you certainly saved me a lot of time from this point forward.
Since you're in the masonary business I'm sure you've seen this sort of thing happen.

I ordered a 25lb pail of castable refractory cement with my stove pipes the other day thinking I'll be casting certain areas of the vent, especially around the pipe. On second thought, maybe I can just go ahead and cast a wide, low profile vent instead. I can really form it to fit the oven profile this way.

George

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

Well, over the last several days I've been milling over how to create a large vent for my oven as I came up with a couple of different ideas and worked on them for a while. But at the end I decided to scrap those vent ideas and move on to my third option. I decided to cast a vent and last night started putting together the molds for it.
The arc shaped lip of the vent is much easier to deal with by casting it. I should have done this in the first place, the entire vent area would have been done by now.

Well, so much for a couple of wasted days...

George

[fxpose]

Re: My 3-Legged Dome

Here's my third attempt at creating the vent. What you see is the inner mold for the cast. It will be cast on my driveway where the outer mold will be held in place using cement blocks.
Instead of using 6" pipes I decided to go an inch larger and got 7" pipes and fittings (largest diameter that can fit over the vent) due to the couple of bends they need to make before exiting the middle top of the dome.

I hope to have the cast ready and mounted by the weekend.

Edit: 2nd photo shows how I set up the outer form. This is now ready for the pour.

George