Work so far

[aureole]

Sorry if this is a repost- I'm not sure whether it should be here or in the Pompeii oven section: anyway, I'm building a pizza oven in the UK, and I've just finished the block stand:

Photos are (hopefully) in the sig below!

[jengineer]

Re: Work so far

good start

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

It's actually really weird looking back at the pictures - in the heat this weekend I pretty much sweated out my own bodyweight, and I'm looking at bits of the finish and thinking "That's ugly!" - still, it'll all get covered in render anyway. On the corner of the stand one of the bricks got kicked out of kilter which is annoying : see attached files.

I do wonder if I should've cleaned up the sleeper I used a bit more - I'll take a sander to it when I've removed the forms. The outside of it is pretty rustic, but at the end of the day, it's 10"x6" of English oak!

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

I've taken the forms off and now I've found a small (12" square) patch of nasty crumbly-looking concrete underneath the oven. I guess I didn't tamp it down enough, but I'm worried about the strength of my slab now. I'm figuring it's just a visible flaw rather than a deep one, but it still bothers me.

The oven stuff is coming next week (I hope, cheque sent), so now I have to work out my dome height. I'm curious about doing a Naples low dome, but with the full course brick (9") on the bottom, my sums say a 16" high dome will have 8 further courses (total curving dome arc 49"), each course having a 11degree angle, so the outer face of the joint will have 1" mortar - this seems like a lot! Also, that's a fairly low dome (effectively 7" of dome over 42").

[christo]

Re: Work so far

I bet the nasty crumbly is just some surface ugliness.

I can't imagine using a 10x6 of english oak as a form - I'd be building furniture with it!!!

as far as the out of kilter - if you stucco or face with stone - you'll never notice it!!!

Christo

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

I'm still not able to decide between a low and high dome oven - if I do the low dome, will I need to buttress the outside of the soldier course? Does it make a difference if I have an angle on each brick (going from horizontal to vertical) versus cutting an angle on the first course (say 30 - 45degrees)?

[dmun]

Re: Work so far

The high/low dome is your choice: the high dome is a bit more structurally sound, and has lots of room for building your fire, the low dome may be a bit better for browning the top of pizza. There is a tradition of angled soldier courses on low dome ovens: for me, I don't really know what the soldier course is for. I think just starting with courses of bricks is a better plan.

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

Thanks: I've been reading a lot of your posts about domes, buttresses,
Catenaries and chains - very informative. Before this, I'd probably have gone for a low dome and tried to turn it in a short space. Trying to plot it, it looks like I'd need a decent buttress: however, given I'm using insulating board, the idea of trying to anchor a buttress down doesn't seem so sensible. Plus, I don't fancy another ~20% thermal mass.

Now, I'm probably going to go for a marginally lower 18"-19" dome. When my bricks arrive, I'll have a play with possible forms.

[Breven]

Re: Work so far

Looking good Matt. Sweet blisters! As I was working outside this weekend trying to wrap up the dome- I couldn't help but think...there is no way I could do this for a living!
I'll be following your progress...

[asudavew]

Re: Work so far

Now, I'm probably going to go for a marginally lower 18"-19" dome. When my bricks arrive, I'll have a play with possible forms.

Don't forget to keep you oven opening low enough to keep heat in.
I think (can't remember exactly)it should be around 63% of the height of the inside of the dome.

Good luck!

Dave

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

I'm going to dig out the nasty concrete tonight/tomorrow - I've got a horrible feeling the concrete mixer failure we experienced will have made a cold joint in the concrete and caused the honeycombing - I'm going to try a few places to see how bad it is. I've got a bad feeling about it, hope I'm just worrying too much.

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

More photos added to the picasa album. Big and stressful run for me.

I've laid the insulating board and the first course of bricks (the soldier course). I'll go and see how the refractory mortar sets tomorrow, it's been on-and-off rain (after I took the week off work to try and finish the dome!).

I ended up using the homebrew refractory mortar recipe after the castable stuff I had didn't really set so great. I'll still use it to cast my vent, but not to touch the bricks.

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

Some pictures up to the fourth course. The -ahem- rustic work continues.

[aureole]

Re: Work so far

One more picture!

[Frances]

Re: Work so far

Looking great, keep up the good work!