1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

[tractorman44]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

Anything happening with your oven?

I have to apologize for the neglect...but summertime hit and along with it came the many projects and activities that take away from fun things....



Bearing in mind that neither myself nor my brother have ever done any brickwork or stonesetting before this project, a lot of you experienced folks will probably get a good chuckle out of our non-professional approach to rebuilding of the oven.

Please bear in mind also that BEFORE I ever found this forum we were a good distance down the rebuild-road so if there are suggestions to be made, those suggestions can only be implemented on the second oven to be built on my own property next year. Please though, add any input that you feel will help us improve the design and or operation for the next one.

As a base, an 18" deep pit was dug 6'x7' and filled with limestone screenings from the local quarry. We rented a gas powered tamper and tamped each level in 2" increments from the bottom to the top then poured a 2 1/2" cap of pre-mix a little at a time and set/leveled the first course of stone in the still wet pour.



The four yellow pins were placed as the target size for the footprint of the new oven. Our plans were to include the "jetting" of meramec sand into the hollow cavity under the cooksurface which is why there is a drain pipe covered in screen wire placed in the bottom center. The thought was that excess water would slowly drain out the bottom of the firmly packed (jetted) sand.

What we were intending was to create a huge heat sink under the cook surface to absorb and hold a lot of heat for an extremely long cooking time.



In retrospect, I can see mistakes we made in the rock selection process as the base was going up....but hind sight is always 20-20 isn't it...

We tried to select stones with at least one nice squarely cut corner for the corners and tried to maintain a semblance of level while going up with the sides.



This is a wonderful example showing the dozens of chisel marks left in the stone so long ago. You can almost imagine the gaunt shape of an 1880's hard working farmer bent over with hammer and chisel in hand... Worn out bib overalls, holes in his shoes and calloused hands tapping away little by little.

This was one big mistake we made... This excellent example of the family Patriarch's handiwork should have been placed in the build to highlight these marks made so long ago instead of buried along with more mundane rocks in the ovens base.

Is four the maximum number of pictures per post ? I have plenty of pictures yet to put up, and if that is the case, this may stretch out for a while ....

[V-wiz]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

Really enjoy seeing this and reading about your family's history. Keep us informed with
Lots of photos.

[davemartin88]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

Thanks for the great thread and pictures so far. I grew up in Independence, MO- looking forward to seeing your rebuild pictures!

[stonecutter]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

Anything happening with your oven?

[stonecutter]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

I'm really enjoying this....I have reclaimed hundreds of tons of stone from the woods, and this brings back good memories, and a few bad ones. Mainly the later involves hornets, poison ivy and smashed fingers.

[tractorman44]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri



Here's a few more of the home made clay brick dug up outside the oven.



Everything gleaned from the original ovens site, we are now loaded, covered and latched down with chains and binders for the short ride back home.



One last thing was to backfill the area to leave it close to looking the same as it was...minus the vegetation. The majority of it was poison ivy anyway so it is no big loss. No trees were cut or damaged during the excavation and now its ready for Mother Nature to work on putting it back to its natural state.

Next up: The rebuild. And we'll show how much we DON'T know about what we're doing...... It's all good though. Thanks for the replys and for bearing with the tedious explanations so far.

[tractorman44]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

If I had a week of spare time I would screen every shovel full .

I'm thinking it'd take at least a week....and that's be with a large mesh too !!

Stonecutter, if there'd been access to a metal detector, I'd have been real tempted to go over the area. But, there wasn't one available plus we had limestone on the brain at the time.

[Gulf]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

If I had a week of spare time I would screen every shovel full .

[stonecutter]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

I would be all over that site with a metal detector....

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

This is very interesting to watch. You never know what will turn up on the next shovel full.

[tractorman44]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri



By this point, there is starting to be some tonnage on the trailer for sure.



Literally on the last swipe of the bucket turning up the last of the buried stone and about 16" to 18" below the surface we found this just as it lays. We figure it was found while the old codger was plowing and tossed against the side of the oven just to get another "rock" out of the field.




According to an anthropological archaeologist dating my daughter at the time, he said this was a "hafted hand axe made of bassalt", and placed the age at between 1,000 and 4,000 years old. He determined the age by the half round oval completely encircling the axe head. The newer ones, less than 1,000 years old did not have the half round go all the way around.

What a surprise this was !!!

[tractorman44]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

G'day
Just a thought..... Could those bricks have been part of the hearth floor?
They would have been repurposed in the past and the broken discarded?
Regards dave

We're not thinking so because of all the rabble accumulating inside the oven over the years had not one brick or part of brick.

...and thanks for clarifying the positioning of the horseshoe. One for sure will be incorporated in the rebuild.

wotavidone, we have marveled many times over how difficult this would've been 135 years ago, moving such a number of huge stone with only simple mechanical advantage.

I also have the remnants of his old limestone cistern cover, a good 4 feet square with a perfectly round hole cut in the center. Though it is broken in three pieces, and one (IIRC) is missing.

[cobblerdave]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

G'day
Just a thought..... Could those bricks have been part of the hearth floor?
Rough cut limestone doesn't make for the smoothest surface. They would have been repurposed in the past and the broken discarded?
Regards dave

[wotavidone]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

And your granddaddy didn't have a backhoe to lift those slabs with. Man, they busted their backs in the good ol' days.

[wotavidone]

Re: 1880's Limestone Oven Dismantling and Rebuild in Missouri

G'day
On the horse shoes its ends up from what I remember, so the luck can't run out
Regards dave

That's the way we always said it had to be, can't have the luck falling out.