Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

[Modthyrth]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

I've mostly corrected the teardrop shape. Now the hole is only slightly egg shaped. I'm in no danger of becoming a professional mason, but I'm still darn proud of what I've managed to do so far!

I used 18 firebricks from my oven supply to line the fire pit a while ago, so I'm almost out of bricks now. I need to make a shopping trip to the brick yard tomorrow morning and keep trucking along. .

[christo]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Nice recovery!!! Looking great! You simply added a partial row to bring it back in?

Wow - the oven builds seem to be going fast these days!!!

Christo

[Modthyrth]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Nice recovery!!! Looking great! You simply added a partial row to bring it back in?

Kind of. I have no idea how I managed to do this, but I somehow ended up with a coil/spiral shape instead of a C butting into the angle iron. That went on for about a course and a half, and I arbitrarily dead ended it after I bridged the pointy end of the teardrop. That managed to bring everything back to a circle shape, so I guess it all worked out.

[Les]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Agreed! Very nice solution - looks great! At the end of the day, no one will see your tansistion. You are getting very close to the pay dirt.

Les...

[egalecki]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Well done. Les is right- where you've fixed it, no one will see it when you're done, including you! It looks really good. Keep plugging!

[mstang1988]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

I was just going to be lazy and leave it, since I'm now planning an enclosure. I don't have more than a half a brick extending out at any point (if I did I trimmed it first so I could use that half-brick) so I didn't figure it would cause much of a problem. The enclosure might be more work overall, but it meant less fussy work before I could start my dome in earnest, and I wanted to get to the cooking part as quickly as possible!

I'll dig up my original drawings and get some accurate dimensions for you, Mstang1988. I think the oven slab was 5x5 (maybe 6x6) with the front corner cut out. The prep wing to the right is 4' long, and the grill area to the left of the oven is 9' long. We'll have a couple hundred square feet of pavers creating the dining/working floor and surrounding the fire pit. It's big, no doubt!

No work on the oven today. It's raining, and probably will continue to rain through tomorrow. Oh well, I need to make pies and challah today, anyway.

Thanks! I'm looking at a very similar design but the space is so tight for a 42" oven, grill, and smoker that I started downsizing until I saw yours :-) I think I'll just have to find a way to fit everything and the 42" oven! Yours is looking freat!

[Modthyrth]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Ta-da! The basic dome is finished:



There's still much work ahead, of course, but it feels downhill from here. Before you know it I'll be curing and cooking!

Mustang--The base foundation is 6' square (with the front corner lopped off). The block stand ended up being 70" square; it fit perfectly on the foundation. I have plenty of room for a 42" oven, and you could definitely downsize a bit for a 36" oven.

[egalecki]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

woo hoo! We need pics of the keystone, you know...

Looks really good. Now it's time for those pastry bag skills.... oh, make the mortar just a little sloppier so it squeezes better.

[mfiore]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Nikki, way to go! Very exciting. I've enjoyed following your build. Pizza is just around the corner (that is unless you get 8 inches of snow, like we have).

Thanks for sharing!

[Frances]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Cool, well done! It looks great!

...actually, at the moment I think it looks a bit like an oversized hedgehog. A very nicely rounded one though.

[exceloven]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Wow! I'm amazed at how fast your dome went up. How long was that, start to finish on the dome? Looks great.

Mark

[Modthyrth]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

I did the dome in a week, I think. It helped to have a four day Thanksgiving weekend in there, but it would have been even faster if two of those days hadn't been rainy! I'm a woman on a mission. After having been delayed by concrete vendors for three months, I had a lot of pent-up building energy. I really wanted to finish the dome before flying to DC this Saturday. That will give the dome a chance to cure for a little over a week, then I can come back and start the curing fires. Yeah!

I'm going to try to convince the family to start a new Christmas Eve tradition of pizza-making. We typically have clam chowder (my side's tradition) and Swedish meatballs (Drew's side's tradition), but I won't eat either thing, so I always end up foraging and eating mostly cookies for dinner that day. ;-) Making fabulous pizzas in the gorgeous Phoenix weather sounds like a fun and delicious tradition. We always end up at our house, anyway, since we're the only ones with a large enough house to accommodate the family (Drew's brothers live in San Francisco and New York). Pizzas on Christmas eve would set me up beautifully for doing the Christmas roast in the oven the next day, too! Now I just have to hurry up and figure out a door plan, too. I do have some leftover firebricks, worst case scenario.

Frances--LOL, it does look rather like a hedgehog. Hmm. That image is now affecting my thoughts about what to name my oven.

[mstang1988]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Ta-da! The basic dome is finished:



There's still much work ahead, of course, but it feels downhill from here. Before you know it I'll be curing and cooking!

Mustang--The base foundation is 6' square (with the front corner lopped off). The block stand ended up being 70" square; it fit perfectly on the foundation. I have plenty of room for a 42" oven, and you could definitely downsize a bit for a 36" oven.

Looking great! That block stand is huge, what made the size so different then the forno brack plans? I'm guessing it's for the stone exterior but I could be wrong :-)

[nodoubt68]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Congrats Nikki,
Love ya dome...your a clever chicky

[Modthyrth]

Re: Nikki's 42" in Phoenix, where it's hot as a...

Looking great! That block stand is huge, what made the size so different then the forno brack plans? I'm guessing it's for the stone exterior but I could be wrong :-)

The plans actually call for a 69"x76" stand, 77"x86" foundation, so I stayed pretty close to the plan but scaled it down a wee bit. I could have gone a little smaller, but not a whole lot. It all adds up!