Glenn's WFO

[carloswlkr]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Looks good. I'm at a similar spot in my build right now, so it's good to see yours as it goes up.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

A few photos of how I created my throat for the chimney.
Hopefully it draws nicely, as you can see that my outer arch is higher than the throat entry, so I might be at risk of getting smoke coming out the front.

Only a fire will tell me for sure.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Well, despite the entire state turning into a blast furnace yesterday with top temperatures of 48 deg C in parts of Melbourne, I actually managed to get some more work done over the last week and today.

Working with the angled arch entry was kinda difficult and time consuming to get the bricks cut and set on the correct angles. I didn't use a form for the outer arch either, and kinda just made it up as I went. It turned out pretty good though, and it's still standing.

I'm playing with ideas for the finishing touches at the moment, and planning to use the red clay pavers to put a nice decorative layer on the arch face. I'll use the cream pavers to finish off the top of the slab and bring the Vermicrete and final render down onto them. Should look good and provide a decent weather seal.

Also, once my last bricks have set and i've bolted the chimney plate down, i'm ready for my first fire!! yay.

The weather has too been crazy though, with either extremely high heat (and total fire bans yesterday), to the odd shower today, so it's hard to get my oven fired and dry.

I want to fire it before i put the insulating blanket on though, so that if I get any major cracks i can patch them up again.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Hopefully i'll get some more work done this weekend if it cools down a bit, but this week has just been way too hot to even think about going outdoors. Even at 9pm at night, it's still sitting on 40deg C.

[carloswlkr]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Looks great! Can't wait to see more of your opening arch. Cheers!

[g8rjoe]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Great job, mate. The brick floor arrangement is quite interesting and compelling. I do like the way your transition on the arch turned out. It's one of my worries. I'll be starting with the brick floor here in about a week after giving the slab a bit of a holiday to cure.

Keep up the good job.

Joe

[Johnny the oven man]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Coming along very nicely Glenn.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Hi Glenn, Your dome looks great! Very elegant arch too. Your decorative outer arch being higher to allow for good views makes sense but I've read about others who wished they dropped it slightly to hold in smoke. If you have a "deeper" vent landing than most then maybe you'd have less likely any smoke out the front? I just don't know. I'll be watching to see what you do for ideas.
Thanks, Dino

I had the same issues when i was trying to plan it out, and the pros and cons i came up with for a high outer arch are:

Pros:
Ease of use in terms of being able to see inside without hunching over, and using peels, etc. (this was important to me, and getting it wrong would put me off using the oven, or result in a rebuild of the arch/entry).

Cons:
Possibly more smoke coming out the front (only a problem during fire up, and can be fixed with the smoke doors that others have made).
Smoke staining of outer arch (I'm choosing ease of use over aesthetics), and besides, it adds to the rustic look.

I'm going to make a relatively large opening in the top of the entry arch where it goes to the chimney, which will hopefully catch most of the smoke, and if it doesn't work, then i'll just have to build one of those half height smoke trap doors that others are using to great effect.

Once the fire is up and racing, the smoke no longer becomes an issue anyway (in theory).

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Hi Glenn, Your dome looks great! Very elegant arch too. Your decorative outer arch being higher to allow for good views makes sense but I've read about others who wished they dropped it slightly to hold in smoke. If you have a "deeper" vent landing than most then maybe you'd have less likely any smoke out the front? I just don't know. I'll be watching to see what you do for ideas.
Thanks, Dino

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

I've cleaned up the front arch area and started on the entry now.
It's a bit too hot this week to get much done as it's currently about 44 C outside (~113F !!), although it's good for curing my dome.

*edit* Power went out before i could post the photos.

I will use the red clay pavers to put a "face" on the outer arch and i'm trying to come up with something a bit artsy, but we'll see how we go.

My design basis is to have a deep entry arch but will have it finishing higher than the outer arch. It was a choice between the problems with smoke at firing and smoke stains, or having to duck down to look inside everytime i use it.
I chose to go with ease of use (high outer arch), as there are work arounds for the other problems (smoke doors, etc), but we'll have to see how well my chimney draws.

[gjbingham]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Nice work Glenn. Your oven looks great. I agree with Christo on the idea of casting the vent and arch sections. I wish I had thought of that!

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

It was pretty satisfying getting that last dome brick in.

Thanks for your input Christo, as this is kind of what i was thinking too. I'll used the pressed clay bricks for building up the base of the vent, and the firebricks for the top arch part. I plan on using the red bricks for the outer arch to get a nice contrast look happening.

[christo]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Based on the heat from my oven - I think you would be fine doing the walls of the entry with normal bricks and saving the firebricks for the top part of the entry arch. we have seen several domes built with conventional bricks with only one or two reports of any type of problems/spalling that I recall.

If I had it to do over again - I might have poured a refractory arch/chinmeny transistion for my entryway. Making the brick arch was fun, though!!

Christo

[exceloven]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Glen,
Very nice arch! Everything looks great so far. Doesn't it feel good getting the dome finished?

Mark

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Final pics showing finished dome. I'm pretty happy with the result, although it got a bit crazy at the end trying and get the old square peg in a round hole!