Hansen Horno

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

More progress this weekend. Here's my draft arch curve; 10" high at the corners, 12.5" high at the center, and 20" across. And my entryway walls cut out and stacked. You'll notice that my reveal is quite small on the right side, but hopefully it's big enough. I decided to stagger the joints on those walls instead of having a joint running all the way from bottom to top.

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

I laid out my insulation boards and they were quite flat and stable so I didn't attach them to the hearth. I also didn't cut them to the shape of the oven floor yet; I figured I could do that at a later date with a handsaw if necessary. I drilled the hole for the floor thermocouple and laid out the floor. The front of the entryway shown here is 14" back from the peak of the cantilever.

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

I mortared the entryway and soldier course into place. I only had to re-cut 2 soldiers, despite my fear that I would have to "adjust" lots of them to make room for mortar (see above). The HeatStop50 is really easy to work with. I made a few minor mistakes, but nothing too drastic (as far as I know!). That reveal is definitely too small, but I'm thinking that it shouldn't cause a problem unless I chip it or something.

Whenever I grind or cut into one of my bricks, it gets very pitted and rough. Even sanding them makes the surface much rougher than the factory surface. It's like there are lots of very tiny stones embedded in the bricks and they chip out when I cut them. You can kinda see it on the very left side of pic #3. Is that normal? The grout gets in there and it's tough to get it out. Is there a way (or a need) to clean all the grout off the surface, more than I have already?

[mfiore]

Re: Hansen Horno

Looks great, Daren! Your oven now matches your Avatar!

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

Looks great, Daren! Your oven now matches your Avatar!

Hey, you're right, I didn't notice that! I'll need a new avatar soon. I haven't decided on the brick arch in front yet - that's my wife's department!

[asudavew]

Re: Hansen Horno

You'll notice that my reveal is quite small on the right side, but hopefully it's big enough.

Looks great so far.

If you want a bigger reveal you could cut an angle on the bricks. (right where they will hit your inner arch)
That would fix it if it bothers you, plus I think it would look really nice.

Dave

[asudavew]

Re: Hansen Horno

Looks great so far.

If you want a bigger reveal you could cut an angle on the bricks. (right where they will hit your inner arch)
That would fix it if it bothers you, plus I think it would look really nice.

Dave

oops never mind.... I just got down to the pics that show the bricks mortared.

I wouldn't worry. It looks great!

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

I wouldn't worry. It looks great!

Thanks Dave! I did think about grinding away some more brick to make the reveal larger, but then I realized how dangerous that would be in my hands!

But I see now that you meant to cut them before mortaring them.... Yep, too late.

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

I think my next step will have to be the arch for the oven opening. As I contemplate how to make that, I'm curious what people think about the ability of my entryway to support both arches. My arch support walls and floor bricks are not mortared down to the floor. If I mortar the first 2 rows of floor bricks together in the entryway (i.e., the small triangles at the front plus the first row of whole bricks behind them, both mortared to the side walls), will that be enough to keep the two entrance walls from being pushing apart by the arches? Or should I install some kind of buttress or brace outside the walls to hold them up at the front? Or will the pressure of the oven-opening arch against the soldiers be enough to keep the entry arch from pushing the walls out? Okay, this is making my head hurt!

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

My oven arch is complete. Not perfect by any means, but basically sound. Why did it look so much nicer on the garage floor??

Until now, I've been "putting up" with the fact that my saw blade wasn't perpendicular to the sliding saw table, but I fixed that tonight so I'm hoping my cut bricks won't be as crooked as they have been up to now! Why I didn't fix that sooner, I don't know, but I think it was definitely affecting how well the bricks fit together.

On to the dome, which I hope to start this weekend, weather permitting.

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

Here are some pics of the 2nd and 3rd courses. I'm having second thoughts about all this cutting! I might go to a smaller taper for course 5, or only taper the inner half of the brick.

[mfiore]

Re: Hansen Horno

DB,

What is your approach to brick cutting? How many cuts are you making per brick? Are you cutting the whole course at once, or individually ?

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

I've been trying to cut the whole course at once, time permitting, using the methods others have described on this forum. For the first two courses above the soldiers, I needed 7 cuts to make 2 dome pieces:

1. Cut brick in half at an angle.
2-3. Cut the ends of the brick at the same angle to form the wedge shape.
4-7. Cut one face of each piece at an angle to get the slope (about 10 degrees so far). This requires 2 cuts because the blade isn't big enough to cut through the whole face.

To get the next course tight, I'd have to make another 2 cuts per piece, to shave off the top of each side edge and eliminate the "V" opening that forms between the bricks. It's very time (and brick and blade) consuming, and I'm having second thoughts about whether it's worth it.
I'm on a forced two-week break, so I'll figure it out when I return to it.

[dbhansen]

Re: Hansen Horno

Mike, how is your oven coming, by the way? I haven't seen an update in a while. Having too much summer fun with the kids?

[mfiore]

Re: Hansen Horno

Mike, how is your oven coming, by the way? I haven't seen an update in a while. Having too much summer fun with the kids?

Absolutely!! They boys are young enough where they still enjoy being around me, I better take advantage of it!!

We spent some time in the Upper Peninsula. I've been working a lot to make up for the vacation time. It seems to always rain on my day off. Very little oven building going on here!

Here's some photos of the Tahquamenon Falls in Northern Michigan