Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Lee, thanks for the feedback. I had not given it a ton of thought. I figure I would research as I got there. Originally I was going to use angle iron and do a straight opening, but am thinking I will go with an arch now. I'll research what you suggest, seems to make sense.

What are your thoughts on going straight up with the opening and then cut 1/2 bricks to the correct depth going up until I am back to a full brick. Filling in the space with mortar.

Time to research more...

-Jake

[mrchipster]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Lee, thanks for the feedback. I had not given it a ton of thought. I figure I would research as I got there. Originally I was going to use angle iron and do a straight opening, but am thinking I will go with an arch now. I'll research what you suggest, seems to make sense.
Time to research more...

-Jake

I used this approach on the inner arch and found it quite logical you can check out what I have done based on the work of the others mentioned on my post "Chip's 42 in Minnesota"

The key for me in understanding this type of inner arch design was to understand that the slope of the cutoff for the top of the inner arch (the cut that will receive the dome bricks) is defined by the inner radius of the dome -- lower edge of brick, the outer radius of the dome - upper edge of brick, and the slope of the cut, as a vector from the center of the oven.

Chip

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

So, I made more progress with my brother this weekend than I was expecting.

Some lessons learned this weekend.

1. I am not going to be prefect. Close enough is good for me.
2. Cleanliness on the back side is not needed. I originally thought it would look clean and perfect. Matt, my brother, pointed out, who cares, no one is going to see it.
3. Less cutting is better. I know I could use less mortar, have super clean joints and make each brick fit perfectly. I don't think in the end it really matters that much. If you really do the calculations because you want to optimize your brick mass, you gain, maybe 1-2 bricks in a course. Just not worth it. There is enough mass and refractory surface.

So, I attached a few pictures form yesterday afternoon before I decided to call it a day and watch some football. Next weekend will be tackling the opening and transition. I've studied countless pictures and ways to cut it. In the end I am going to KISS. So, we will see when we get there, if I think about it for more than 30 minutes I am making it too complicated.

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Wow, point #3 is a convoluted run on sentence mess. Hope it makes sense though.

[Lburou]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

You are doing very well in terms of the bond between the chains, wish my oven had that much overlap

With regard to the entry shape, do what you are comfortable with.

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Quick update, took a couple of weeks off. Had a car accident before last weekend and rested after that. This weekend was my nephew's birthday party and football. I'm hoping that I can get to the opening and a good portion of the dome this weekend and get this thing finished up soon.

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Busy couple of weeks, lots of pictures coming soon.

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

OK, quick update and some photos. When the project is done I'll try to post a lot more photos than is in here.

So, some refresher, I am going for "good" not "perfect". My goal is to build a really nice and well working oven with minimal skill(that's me), a good price(all locally sourced) and spare time(really one day a weekend at most).

With that being said, I was able to complete an opening, build up a platform for a flu liner, and have my courses almost all the way up to full complete circles.

Take a look, let me know what you think, I'm open for comments as always :-)

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

It's looking good Jake.
I can even see the fine job of staggering the joints you did!
Can't wait to see more pix.
I following the same philosophy, but it's more like every other weekend.

- jeff

[jatsrt]

Re: Jake's In Mass (Started July 3, 2011)

Hi all,
It's been a while. I've attached a couple of photos to let you know where I am.

Overall very good progress. As you can see from the photos a few major milesontes.

1. The oven is complete! Finished off the dome with a simple foam form.
2. This is the first fire to start drying it out.
3. It's been framed and starting to look more "complete"

So some detail. We made it up pretty far using the indispensible tool. However, due to the encroaching winter(already hit with a 1' snow storm) We decided we needed to speed things up to get this sucker done. So we made sure we had enough material, created a foam forma and finished the dome in a day.
Over the next week I mentally planned out the framing. Started that this past friday and by end of day yesterday you can see in the picture what I have.

Some things you will notice. First the oven is not insulated yet, though I started the housing. Pretty much I am trying to weather proof it the best I can. I need to do a few more burns to dry out the oven completely before I can insulate it. So I am 1/2 doing one while still working on the other. I made sure we left enough room to work with to get the insulation done.

Second, while not pretty my opening and flue worked like a charm. After a full day of burn in there was no darkening of the arch past the flue. There is a ton of moisture in my oven right now, it is going to take a long time to dry this thing out. However a low and slow 300ish temp all day was pretty easy to do. At the end of it the top of my some was dry, not cracked, and warm. All good things.

Next steps?
I am going to get as much as I can get done before the weather turns too much for the worse. So in rough order until the weather does not allow it.

1. Facade my arch, either brick, stone or tile. Not too sure yet but I need to clean up the look of the arch with a facade.
2. Insulate the oven. I have a nice local supplier of ceramic blanket for a good price.
3. Finnish the cement board and make it weather tight.
4. Veneer the bottom part with either thin brick or thin stone, not too sure yet.
5. Finnish the top, exact details to be determined later

Thanks all and I promise at some point I will do a complete photo gallery with the missing steps and better journaling.

-Jake