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Hi Everyone,
Here are just a few pics from my build which as of this morning, is a completed dome, with only the final rendering and curing to do before getting into some cooking.
This is the base, sitting on a reinforced concrete slab. The base is made from Hebel (aerated concrete, incredibly strong, but also really light and able to cut with a hand saw) The hebel blocks come in 600x200x200mm so 2 blocks makes one side of this box. On each run, I had 2 200mm cubes left over from joining the slabs together, so I made a post in the middle to support the top slab.
There is a sheet of compressed fiber cement then glued on and then the formwork for the top slab was clamped onto that to save the hassle of propping it from the ground. After the slab was done, I stuck on some leftover hebel I had to the outside to give me a bit more floor area for the oven.
This is the first course of bricks mortared onto the slab and the bricks for the floor of the oven cut in to fit. They are just sitting on a bed of builders sand which in theory will make it a bit easier to replace, should any of them crack. I know it's going to fill up with ash and the like, but that was the idea. The 2 bricks at the very front are mortared in, and there is one extra brick each side to make the door slightly higher. These are dry pressed bricks which in Oz means they are baked at a slightly higher temp to normal bricks.
I made an easy template out of ply wood for making the doorway.
I made another template for the arc of the dome and just sat each brick on that as they went into place. I think this was the last course I used it for.
I used a really good (1000kg static load limit) fit ball to finish the dome. It was fantastic as it allowed for the fact that the dome wasn't perfectly round, and I could adjust the pressure in the ball to compensate for more bricks sitting on it.
You can see I went a bit crazy with the mortar, but it seems to have done the job.
Just the render and curing to go.
Looking forward to some feedback.
Here are just a few pics from my build which as of this morning, is a completed dome, with only the final rendering and curing to do before getting into some cooking.
This is the base, sitting on a reinforced concrete slab. The base is made from Hebel (aerated concrete, incredibly strong, but also really light and able to cut with a hand saw) The hebel blocks come in 600x200x200mm so 2 blocks makes one side of this box. On each run, I had 2 200mm cubes left over from joining the slabs together, so I made a post in the middle to support the top slab.
There is a sheet of compressed fiber cement then glued on and then the formwork for the top slab was clamped onto that to save the hassle of propping it from the ground. After the slab was done, I stuck on some leftover hebel I had to the outside to give me a bit more floor area for the oven.
This is the first course of bricks mortared onto the slab and the bricks for the floor of the oven cut in to fit. They are just sitting on a bed of builders sand which in theory will make it a bit easier to replace, should any of them crack. I know it's going to fill up with ash and the like, but that was the idea. The 2 bricks at the very front are mortared in, and there is one extra brick each side to make the door slightly higher. These are dry pressed bricks which in Oz means they are baked at a slightly higher temp to normal bricks.
I made an easy template out of ply wood for making the doorway.
I made another template for the arc of the dome and just sat each brick on that as they went into place. I think this was the last course I used it for.
I used a really good (1000kg static load limit) fit ball to finish the dome. It was fantastic as it allowed for the fact that the dome wasn't perfectly round, and I could adjust the pressure in the ball to compensate for more bricks sitting on it.
You can see I went a bit crazy with the mortar, but it seems to have done the job.
Just the render and curing to go.
Looking forward to some feedback.
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