Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Wow - I think enclosing it will spoil it...

sorry - but the rocks behind it look awesome.

Gudday
Sharkeys build is basically tucked in a sandstone cave in a sandstone cliff.
I would like him to give us a pic of the view away from the oven and possibly a longer view shot of the oven and surrounds.
Would you mind Sharkey ?

Regards dave

Daves right. The oven is built into a big rock outcrop with an overhang that is right next to my house. There will still be plenty of rock visible.

Because it has been built into a cave (as Dave puts it) it needs an enclosre to keep the water out. When it rains the water seeps down the rocks and gets under the floor of the oven. I need to catch all the water and divert it away from the cave.

I will take some photos, but it could be a couple of weeks before I get a chance, so here is one from early in my build thread that shows the extent of the rock and the location of the oven area next to my house. The oven is located against the vertical rock that is behind the tree on the left. The enclosure actually won't hide much of the rock at all.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Wow - I think enclosing it will spoil it...

sorry - but the rocks behind it look awesome.

Gudday
Sharkeys build is basically tucked in a sandstone cave in a sandstone cliff.
I would like him to give us a pic of the view away from the oven and possibly a longer view shot of the oven and surrounds.
Would you mind Sharkey ?

Regards dave

[Mitchamus]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Wow - I think enclosing it will spoil it...

sorry - but the rocks behind it look awesome.

[stonecutter]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

very nice!

[cobblerdave]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Gudday
That sandstone arch is very very handsome addition to the build. You should be chuffed I recon !!!!

Regards Dave

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

I have been doing more work on my enclosure. I wasn?t exactly sure how it was going to work so I have not purchased all the bits I need until I work it out.

After shaping my timber counter to fit the uneven shape of the rock I knew that cutting corrugated iron to fit neatly with the rock would be very difficult. Also, I wanted to cut it to fit around the oven arch, without it actually touching the bricks, but then I would need a way to hide the gap between the iron and the arch. Anyway, I came up with this.

I decided to make a decorative arch that would hide the edge of the corrugated iron, but it would need to extend back beyond the front of the oven a bit. My first idea was to use some nice bricks and cut them to shape. Then I thought about buying some sandstone pavers and cutting them up. But in the end I decided that natural, weathered sandstone would be perfect so I started searching around my place for some suitable flat sandstone rocks. I ended up with seven rocks cut something like this:




I had a sheet of the mini corrugated iron so before I fastened the decorative arch I wanted to cut the iron to fit around arch. But I also needed to make it fit the natural rock neatly, which is a much bigger challenge. So, after some more work with the angle grinder I had this:




And here are most of the pieces just sitting in place. Cutting the iron to fit the rock on the left was challenging to say the least. I roughly cut a cardboard template, then traced that (with improvements) onto another cardboard template. When I had that fitting ok I traced that onto a sheet of plywood and cut with a jigsaw. I then shaped that until it fit perfectly, and then traced that onto the corrugated iron.




This was enough to demonstrate that my idea was feasible so I fastened the decorative arch in place and then ground the inside edge to match the brick arch.

Here is the finished decorative arch with one sheet of the corrugated iron resting in place.



I am really pleased with how it looks and very satisfied with how neat the finish between the rock and the iron is.

I now have a plan for the rest of the job. I need to build a small pier where the pile of bricks is in the top left corner. I also need to buy some metal studs so that I don?t have timber anywhere near the chimney.

[aceves]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Sharkey! You're back!

Awesome build, and great photo updates on your WFO counters. Keep up the good work. Congrats!

Aceves

[SCChris]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Very very nice!
Beautiful functional art!
Really!



Chris

[Greenman]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Looks awesome. Great work and the photography does it justice as well.

Cheers ........... Steve

[Cookie Monster]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Amazing work mate!!!

Can't wait to see the finished product!!!

[Bert]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Looks awesome! Keep it up!

Bert

[cobblerdave]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Gudday
Love your work!!!be proud
Regards Dave

[Sharkey]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Time for an update.

The triangular fill-in piece took most of a day to complete. I had to shape it to fit the rock then I attached it using a few dowel joints to the timber at one end and a dyna bolt into the rock at the other. I then shaped a timber plug and covered the bolt head. Then an hour or so of sanding to finish it off.




All the timber was sealed all around before being glued in place. Then the edge gap was filled with silicone and then more sealant applied over that.




Here is a photo of the oven warming up on Saturday night. The benchtop works really well for pizza making and has plenty of depth to store containers of ingredients.




The stainless steel gets warm, but not as hot as I was expecting. The innermost bit is just too hot to touch but you can rest your hand on the outer part no problem.

I have started the prep work for the enclosure. The gutter has been mounted to the rock at the back. The vertical groove cut into the rock is for my enclosure wall to slot into. The enclosure is going to be mini corrugated iron - the same profile as the scrap piece that is resting on the top to catch the water that drips over the rock above, but in plain silver gal.

[stonecutter]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Great job scribing into the ledge! Did you prime the cuts or put a capillary break in between?

[david s]

Re: Building Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Expect the radiant heat from the oven to make that piece of stainless hot enough to fry an egg on. It will tend to cook your timber underneath, but probably not quite enough for it to be a fire hazard. I have a similar piece of stainless bridging the gap between my trailer side and the ovens decorative arch. It is about 400mm x400mm and has got so hot that it has melted the nylon protecting feet that sit between the stainless sheet and the trailer sides.