My Wood fired Redux

[lhs]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

That's a beautiful oven and wonderful craftsmanship. I hope this question isn't offensive, but I am curious - when you do stone work for others, do you just charge for the "labor" or also for the "art"? I mean, if you were selling a painting or a sculpture, the cost of the materials and how much time you put into it is somewhat irrelevant, you'd charge for the value of the finished artistic result. It seems to me that your stone work is definitely in the "art" category!

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

That's a beautiful oven and wonderful craftsmanship. I hope this question isn't offensive, but I am curious - when you do stone work for others, do you just charge for the "labor" or also for the "art"? I mean, if you were selling a painting or a sculpture, the cost of the materials and how much time you put into it is somewhat irrelevant, you'd charge for the value of the finished artistic result. It seems to me that your stone work is definitely in the "art" category!

Not an offensive question, but an honest one.

The short of it is this...If somebody values a highly customized project, with lots of one of a kind features, then the cost will be higher.

The things I am doing with this oven are being done because I have never had the opportunity to do them for anyone before. All my work is custom, but finding clients that value the work and are willing to pay for it....unfortunately, they are becoming more and more scarce every year. But that is a deep subject for me...I'm not going to junk up the thread with my feelings on that.

When I am asked, "How much is ...." I say, "It depends on what you want". So, the honest answer would be.......the cost depends on the job and what the client wants.

Whether it's art or not is completely subjective to individual taste. And, if the client values what I bring to the table, then the cost is justified,because they value my knowledge, experience, ideas and abilities.

I wish to thank you and all others that have expressed appreciation for and complimented my work on this thread.

[TxTanner]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

I so agree with you. There are a huge number of manufactured stone products on the market today that you can throw up on a wall like tile for 7 bucks a foot.It looks good from 10 foot away because stone always looks better than most surfaces. But when you look closer you start to see repeating patterns and jaked up inside and outside corners.

As you know,a guy can make a killing hiring a crew of cheap help and slapping up 2000 feet of that a day.To due high end usually means, you and maybe one helper and two guys can only due so much in a day.The big bucks are in the cheap stuff.

It's obvious to me by looking at the quality of work, your not doing this just for the money but for the love of the work and the satisfaction you get from it.

From one contractor to another, you got my respect..... and you know how we like to find fault with each others work......I aint havin no luck with that.

Bill

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

The perforated peel worked pretty good, and it definitely launched pizza better than my wooden peel, but I think the crisp edges of the holes may be a bit grabby sometimes. So I beveled them in an effort to lessen any drag. I made some dough to test it out tomorrow..we'll see if my hunch is right.





The rivets are 3/16" SS

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Today I managed to sneak some work in before the rain started. I finished the brick on the back corners, so stone work is next. I taped off the corner joints and installed hardware cloth to the durock on the chimney for the scratch coat tomorrow.

The chimney will be capped with a flat stone, with corner supports carved from granite...I have yet to make those. The crown will have a stone drip edge, and a tapered parge to the flue.

Until all that is done, I made a temporary chimney pot from a scrap piece of flue and the cap is an old 12"x12" pressed concrete sample. I'm glad it was still around....it works pretty good at keeping rain out of the flue.

[Gulf]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Great temporary fix for the cap. Can't hardly wait to see the final "finished wide angle" reveal pic of the build.

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Thanks Gulf...getting close. Cedar shakes, stonework, chimney stucco and some detailing are the last major steps left.

[TxTanner]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Can't hardly wait to see the final "finished wide angle" reveal pic of the build.

Me too.....me too....

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

In between everything, I managed to get the scratch & brown coat done, and the metal insulated panel for my permanent door fabricated.

Putting the oven to use tomorrow so I won't have a chance to work on anything until Sunday night.

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Maybe a bit premature, but I will probably be starting another oven as soon as mine is done...which will be at the end of Sept.

The design will be something like this, but without the rear exit chimney.



I'm psyched because I was going to do a stone roof similar to that on my current oven, but decided I wanted to shave weight off.

The elements that I am taking from the picture are: The round enclosure, stone veneer and roof.

I REALLY want to do a rib vault base, but at the very least...I'll do another pointed vault like the one on my oven, except it will be all stone.

Did I mention I'm psyched about it?

[couchpotatoe]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Stonecutter,

I absolutely love your build! You have set the bar impossibly high for the rest of us. And thanks for your response to my questions about concrete countertops.

For baking bread, I have found that semolina flour sprinkled out of a shaker onto the peel makes the dough slide off like it was on roller bearings. It works really well with both my wood and aluminum peels. With bread, it doesn't seem to burn or taste "funny" either. Have not tried it yet with the higher temperatures used for pizza, though.

Russ

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

......thanks for your response to my questions about concrete countertops.

For baking bread, I have found that semolina flour sprinkled out of a shaker onto the peel makes the dough slide off like it was on roller bearings. It works really well with both my wood and aluminum peels. With bread, it doesn't seem to burn or taste "funny" either. Have not tried it yet with the higher temperatures used for pizza, though.

Russ

Thanks Russ. Any more questions on counters feel free to ask.

Thanks for the tip, but I hate semolina and cornmeal on the bottom of pizza...like poison.

[couchpotatoe]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

Have you tried rice flour? That's what one of my friends uses. He grinds it in a little flour mill and it is coarse enough that it mostly just falls away when he slides in his pizzas.

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

No, but I am making gluten free pizza for my wife and some friends with gluten issues...so rice flour would be good for that...thanks.

I don't have any trouble launching pies with regular flour, the beveled peel is more of an experiment than a need.

[stonecutter]

Re: My Wood fired Redux

It's been raining day and night here for the last three days....and more to come tomorrow and Sunday.

Here is a pic I found on the camera from last Saturday....it is one of the last pizzas of the night. We had run out of dough, so Mom made a small batch of her 'fast' dough...this was 1/2 hour after it was made. Oven was running hot, I would guess 800*-900* at the time. This got made for a bunch of hungry kids coming out of the pool.

Thin crust crust style.