Todd's Oven

[egalecki]

Re: Todd's Oven

Hey Todd- I was looking at your pics from the photo gallery. Your bricks for the opening arch side are cut almost exactly like mine were. That shape worked really well, but if I had to do it over again, I'd make them so that I had full and half sized bricks alternating, so that the landing bricks lock with the arch sides. I had to buttress my arch landing sides because they were separate from the oven itself and wanted to tip over when too much weight pushed on them. If they were locked in with the oven, that would have not been as much of a problem.

You may be looking to make a complete thermal break, but I don't think that's even necessarily desirable in this case- the flue needs to get hot to draw the smoke up properly, I believe. When my oven is red-hot (well, white-hot) the front bricks have been quite hot to the touch, but they haven't been so hot I couldn't touch them.

Just my two cents.

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Todd's Oven

Great work Todd!

Personally I vote for mortaring the bricks in place.

Keep the photos coming...

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Hello Elizabeth,

Ya, the two bricks for the chimney are just there for reference at the moment. My plan is to have an arch in the dome, then a small gap, then just in front of it a slightly larger arch to support the backside of the chimney, then a gap of one brick to let the smoke enter the chimney, then a front arch to support the front of the chimney. So my chimney will be free standing of the dome and it will be 1.5 bricks deep with an alternating interlocking wall up to the arches. My arches are interlocking tapers. Hope that made sense...

Once I get the two chimney arches built and the clay chimney tubes set Im going to form in around the whole chimney all the way down to the slab and fill the form with vermiculite/portland mix. This should lock everything together.

This 'I think' will allow the dome to expand and contract without exerting force on the chimney and the chimney mass will not be wicking heat away from the dome. Im leaving about a quarter inch gap that I will fill with a flexible woven ceramic oven seal.

My chimney will have a lot of mass and Im planning on capping it with an antique English chimney pot.

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Thanks DrakeRemoray!

[Frances]

Re: Todd's Oven

Phew guys....! And I thought Les had built the ultimate dome.

But hey, if Les thinks it can be done, that's good enough for me. Go for it Todd, we're all watching you!

[larrya1049]

Re: Todd's Oven

Hi Todd your build looks great so far and I will be watching it closely and taking notes. It looks like you have added a space in front of the hearth for an ash dump. Is that so? I'm kinda on the fence about adding one. I see where it might be an advantage but I also have read that most wind up not using them. Regards Larry

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Hi Larry, I plan on doing an ash pan and also thought that having the vent in the floor directly under the chimney may help with draw. if not I can always close it off..

Frances... Thanks!

Im not trying to one-up Les... he has the ultimate dome because it currently makes pizzas....

.

[egalecki]

Re: Todd's Oven

Your bricks are cut so nicely I'm sure you won't have a problem with it falling down! I didn't have a saw nice enough to let my inner perfectionist fly- I drove myself nuts enough as it was.

Seriously, I'm impressed with both the plan and the adjustments you made to your saw to get it to do what you wanted...

My dome used nearly 3 bags of heatstop, but it's a 36. Is yours a 42?

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Thanks Elizabeth! I like building tools...

Yes its a 42"

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Today sucks.. woke up to a rottweiler in seizure.. turns out to be a brain tumor and we had to put her down... grrrr...

[Ken524]

Re: Todd's Oven

Todd,

So sorry to hear that. We lost our rotty to tumors in her hind leg a couple of years ago. She was absolutely the kindest, gentlest animal I've ever known.

[egalecki]

Re: Todd's Oven

I'm sorry about your dog. They're a part of the family and it's awful when we have to let them go. Takes some time to get over it too.

[dbhansen]

Re: Todd's Oven

Very sorry to hear that, Todd. I still think about my Golden Retriever almost every day, and he passed away more than a year ago. It's an incredibly tough thing to go through.
- Daren

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven

Thanks all! It was a real bummer but I still have her sister. I spent the afternoon drinking Corona, listening to NPR, and working on the oven. it really took my mind off things...

[toddj]

Re: Todd's Oven