Oven in Virginia

[alexi82]

Re: Oven in Virginia

Browsing this site can be downright discouraging; some of the dudes on here seem to be doing masonry work as if it were going to be a critical component of a space shuttle.

haha tell me about it...

i've learned now not to get discouraged. there is some great tips on here and everyone knows what they are on about. i've done my oven to the best of my abilities and the next one i do when i move in a few years i'll have learnt from my mistakes and from all the awesome advice on this forum in the end if your oven works its a good thing!

[fxpose]

Re: Oven in Virginia

How do you all bend rebar? I can't get a sharp bend.

For sharp bends you can insert the rebar in 2 lengths of steel pipes and make the bend.

[ubarch]

Re: Oven in Virginia

Poured the top of the stand yesterday.

Some observations:

-I found that rebar tie wire (as recommended in the instructions) was really hard to use. It was much, much easier to just tack weld the rebar pieces in place.

-fxpose's suggestions about using steel pipe lengths to bend rebar worked great. I bought 1/2" ID pipe for 1/2" rebar, though, and some of the pieces didn't fit without pounding the ends.

-I used ordinary Sakrete. I was a little nervous about this because at Home Depot there are other, more expensive mixes that say they have higher strength. However, I couldn't find any mention on here of proper sack-mix concrete brands, and the instructions didn't seem to mention anything either. Sakrete's "5000 plus" product is more expensive, but also lists that it meets the same spec as ordinary Sakrete.

-We mixed each bag individually in a 5gal bucket. I have a rather large drill with a paint mixing attachment that made this go pretty quickly. It sort of acts like flour. I also found that the following technique works pretty well for mixing this way:
-Add 4 quarts of water to bucket.
-Add about 3/4 to 4/5 of the concrete mix.
-Mix. The result should be very thin and soupy.
-Add the rest of the concrete, and mix.

-We finished up at about 9:00pm. I woke up at about 7:30 and covered the set concrete in water, and I'll do that throughout the day to help it cure.

Pictures attached.