Bellingham Bread Oven

[janprimus]

Laid up more wall

Well this weekend, we laid up a lot more wall. I have to go get another 20 or 30 blocks to finish it off height-wise and will post more pics as it goes. Next, I get to go rock hounding down on the Nooksack river for good rocks to include in my wall. Oh there is a pic of the oven dome and hearth as well.

Marcel, I am assuming you used soft copper for the top of your hoo haws there... The big stuff I got is huge compared to that. I do like your ideas for joining the pipes without fittings though. I would wager I can make that work for me as well.
Thanks
Chad

[aikitarik]

Marcel,

shows Paul's suggested chicken wire helping to support the perlcrete. The bricks are temporarily placed where they will help to hold the chicken wire against the foil. Because of the compound curve, I had to snip and/or remove extra chicken wire. I think I may be able to finish this thin layer tomorrow. Then I will be able to later apply much more perlcrete since it will have the rough surface for adhesion.

Nice work. It's weird how we are leap frogging one another and doing similar (though not identical) work and designs.

A couple weekends ago, we poured our perlite layer in a single evening using a simply form of a 4x8 sheet of thin masonite cut in half length-wise as a form to hold the perlite against the dome. We also used aluminum foil and chicken wire.

It's still not entirely dry, but it works GREAT! We even left the masonite forms on while cooking a steak in there the other night and only took them off when we put the steel framing back up last night (we lifted it off to do the pour). That revealed to me just how wet the perlite still was!

P.S. I also hope to actually use the oven for baking pizza!

I don't know how you've managed to wait this long! Even though it wasn't ready, we've already used the oven for 2 different pizza sessions, to roast a chicked (to test out our idea of cooking the turkey in there this week), and to make Tuscan steak this weekend (which was excellent, but a mixed success).

[janprimus]

wall work has begun

Well we have begun the task of actually putting rocks and bricks on the wall. We have more on than in this photo, but I willl have to take a shot of it and post it tomorrow. It has begun, this is very exciting.

[janprimus]

more wall pictures

More wall pictures from Bellingham.

In one, you see how the rock and brickwork is shaping up. It is very satisfying to do this sort of work. I had forgotten how much I missed it.

The other with the yellow pipes is the oven base. Since I have a refractory hearth, it needs to be supported more than just standing on the base. I thought of pouring a slab underneath the hearth, but that seemed a major PITA to do the form work. What I did was notch the tops of the blocks with my carbide grinder filled the notches with rather dry thick concrete and tapped the 1? blackpipe into place. It gives me the support I need and I can fill the cells with the pipe on them full and give extra support to the oven that way. When we set the hearth in a few days, it will have been insulated on the bottom and will still be set with a supporting bead of mud around the perimeter edge. Yes, I made it so that it drains toward the door about a ⅓ of a bubble off level. I think I have figured out how to top my dome now as well. I have a friend who knows how to do all the calculations to make a copper dome for it. I am looking forward to that.
Chad

[janprimus]

latest pic

Here we go with more stones and bricks going on. This is a real fun process, slow but fun.

Chad

[janprimus]

more rocks looking cool

Here is the latest. You can see the hearth in place as well, I will get more pics up soon.

Chad

[james]

Way to go Chad. That looks just great. Eccellente. You have inspired me to take lots of photos of good looking stone walls on our Florence trip.
James

[stuart]

Amazing! Very inspiring, thank you for the continued photo updates.

I've been trying to determine how the fireplace and oven adjacent to my poolside arbor will fit in. James is working on dimensions for a corner oven but the round oven base intrigues me. Perhaps a more organic look such as this will be a solution.

I'm locating a vintage '59 travel trailer next to the arbor to serve as a pizza prep area and poolside bar. So without going over the top I want to play up the kitschy tiki thing a bit but still blend in with the Texas Hill Country meets Prairie style house. Confused? So am I.

Feel free to post any pics you feel might inspire me!

[jengineer]

Is that a wine cask on its side in the backgound?

[stuart]

Is that a wine cask on its side in the backgound?

Perhaps a hot tub?

[Royal Fe]

Love the wall and the look of the flowing rock.

Do you have time for an update?

Duke

[redbricknick]

I love rocks.

The rebar sticking out out of your wall is intriguing. Does that hold up the foundation rocks? Your wall is beautiful. Have you seen other brick rock blend walls? In Tasmania we have too many rocks. In L.A they are hard to find. I love rocks.

[jengineer]

Red - not quite rebar but close to it. They are probably galvanized metal tabs (easily bendable). They tie in the rocks to to the block wall, in a sense flexible rebar. If you take a look at some old photos, and not so old, of earthquakes in California, Alaska and Japan you can come across examples where the facade fell off the the main structure becasue it was not tied in.

[janprimus]

answers, I promise

Perhaps a hot tub?

Yes, a hot tub. It is an old redwood tub about 4 feet across and four feet deep. It is heated with a snorkel stove. http://www.snorkel.com/stoves.html It is a very cool item, I just have to get around to building the deck to go underneath it... just anther project eh?

[janprimus]

update, pictures soon.

Love the wall and the look of the flowing rock.
Do you have time for an update?

Duke I do have time for an update, but no new pics, I will see if I can get a couple tonight when I go home. I apologise for not writing more, but my progress has seemed so slow. I have to keep reminding myself that this is art. It is truly beautiful and when I get to work on it, it is a blast. I have been getting my bricks from a local free ad paper here called The Echo http://www.echoads.com/ and it is a wonderful thing. I have had bricks come in in dribs and drabs 100 here 300 there, 20 over there and I have been grateful for them. Seems as though lots of folks out there get some bricks with an intention to do a project and then wind up just playing checkers with them. ;-) I even got about 250 industrial kiln bricks. they are big, like 9X4X3 and they are heavy and really dense. Feels more like stone than brick. They are also white varying to almost a slight pink tinge. Very cool. They are also the hardest bricks I have seen yet. My carbide saw blade hardly scratches the surface compared to a common brick! Well a few weeks ago, a woman called me up and said she had a lot of bricks and did I want them. I asked how many and she said 4 pallets worth! Wow! She said she only wanted 15 bucks a pallet. Being the honest sort I am, I told her that was a pretty cheap price for new bricks and she told me I could get them anyway. I dont think these were standard pallets because in my experience it is usually 350 to 450 bricks a pallet. My two sons and I went there to get them armed with my buddies trailer a big 6'X12' built for stout dual axel trailer. Darned if we could only fit 3 pallets in hand stacking everything. I left one there which I will hopefully go get today, but when we got home and stacked them we had over 2000 bricks just in the three pallets![img]images/icons/icon4.gif[/img] Now I have to go get another pallet and haul them back later today! All for 60 bucks and a tank of gas. I must say, I am feeling pretty smug about the whole thing. [img]images/icons/icon6.gif[/img] So now I have more than enough bricks to build my wall and a few planters as well and I just have to get more rocks, but those arent that hard to come by. This is still a major big project. My girl that does this sort of work informs me that this sort of work bids out at about 30 bucks a square foot, for the face work alone. That does not include the foundation cinder block wall and the other side of the wall. Geez, this thing is going to be worth more than my house. I will get pics of things today if I have the time or the energy... See you all soon and thanks for your kind words and encouragement.
Chad