My Oven

[noosab]

Here are a photos of my project. I have yet to do stucco work. See my stucco question under "Pompeii Oven Construction".


By the way, I attached 2 photos but nothing indicates that they exist on either the original page or on the preview page I a looking at now.

Earl

[noosab]

2nd try at attaching photos

Hi again,
I think I figured out where I went wrong on my 1st try.
Earl

[DrakeRemoray]

Looks nice! How did you add the chimney after you made the dome and entrance? Did you have to cut through the brick?

Have you ever eaten any of that prickly pear catus in the background?

Drake

[maver]

mmm, prickly pear

Beautiful brickwork, I'm afraid I just don't have the patience for those kinds of cuts myself!

As a child visiting our family in Italy I had prickly pear from the countryside - it was the best fruit I had ever tasted. Every now and then I buy it from our local grocery in the Pacific Northwest - it's always dull and mealy, but so are the blood oranges. I'll wait until we go back, hopefully in the next two years.

[noosab]

Thanks for the compliments

Hi,
If you look closely at the first photo, you may notice that the front arch (I used foam plastic as forms for both arches and to shape the sand I used to support the dome brick after the angle got too steep for self support) is set about 2 1/2 inches in front of the rear arch with the entire top portion open to the sky. I closed in the ends of that slot with firebrick splits (same length and width as regular sized firebrick but only half as thick) and left about a 6 inch gap between them in the middle. The support for the chimney is from near the ends of those two splits, the top of the front arch and insulating firebricks carved to conform to the shape of the dome (they are very "soft" and easy to shape with almost any tool, even a stick). A 6 inch double wall flue pipe is inside the chimney and rests on the edges of the two splits, the upper insulating and the front arch.The chimney height is about 1/8 inch less than the 24 inch flue pipe.

Shaping the bricks was fairly quick and easy. I used a diamond tile saw (wet) that I found on sale at Harbor Freight for about $35 and included the blade. After all the cutting and grinding (dragging bricks back and forth over the edge of the blade to carve and deburr), It seems I have worn less than a 16th of an inch off the diameter.

No, I haven't tried the prickly pears yet. I bought some from a grocery store some years ago and agree that they were not flavorful at all. I tried to find a recipe for prickley pear jelly, but haven't found one yet. Next year we may have more time and fewer other projects to take up our time. By the way, there are very few stickers left on the cactus to the right of the oven. I've somehow gotten most of them in me. I even tripped and fell on top of the darned thing one 100 degree day when I wasn't dressed for sticker protection.

Earl

[redbricknick]

Dude, your pizza oven is awesome. Do you have any additional photographs of the build? How is the pizza? What dimensions did you go with?

[noosab]

Hi Red,

I've got pics of the build but they are too big to post. When I try to get the file size small enough to post, they look terrible. I used to have some software that would shrink them without destroying the quality, but I need to go looking for it.

I made the oven a little bit over 33 inches inside diameter and 15 inches high inside at the center, mostly because that was as large as I could make it without having to dig out the cacti or convincing my wife that she'd rather have it somewhere else. She seemed quite set on having it where it is. As it is, you can handle most of the small cactus to the right of the oven without getting stuck. That's because I got most of the stickers in me during construction and the plant hasn't had time to grow replacements.


Yesterday I did the stucco work (a layer of WESTERN ONE COAT) and will wait until it has cured a few days before putting on the finish coat of STO POWERLASTIC. This is the company recommended by our forum administrator James in answer to my question in another part of this forum. I bought the minimum amount and it wan't terribly expensive but, if their coverage estimate is anywhere near accurate, I should have enough left for 3 or 4 more ovens.

Earl

[james]

I hope the STO worked out well. How was it to work with and did you get a color you like?

For reducing photos, Carioca recommend picasa (free from Google). There is more here:

http://fornobravo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=548

I find that a 480x360 photo fits under the 100k maximum size.
James

[noosab]

Thanks for the information on reducing photo size.

Yes, we got the color we wanted. They stock a base color, white I believe, and color it however you like in a manner similar to how paint stores ad color to their white base paint.

I haven't applied the STO finish yet. I'm waiting for the first coat of stucco to cure and for the weather to clear up enough for the surface to dry thoroughly. I'll post a photo as soon as I can after the color coat is on.

We have been very happy with the food we've cooked so far in the oven. So far we've had two pizzas, two loaves of bread and two pans of eggplant parmesan. All came out great and we found it much easier to monitor the cooking than on our kitchen oven.

Earl

[noosab]

after 1st coat of stucco

I finally succeeded in shrinking a file, so attached should be a photo of my oven project taken just after the first coat of stucco (Nov.17th).

Earl

[maver]

Hey Earl, that's looking great! It looks like you left a blob on top of your chimney though .

[noosab]

The blob

Yes, I finished up the stucco after dark and set the hawk (the piece of 1" foam insulation I cut to shape and used as the form for laying the dome bricks) on top of the chimney when I finished. I did remove it before building the next fire.

Earl