Another Aussie Oven

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

The bricks and saw turned up during the week and today, I got a full day of pizza oven building. Even better was that I got to use heaps of my power tools including, the brand new brick saw, grinder, battery drill, jig saw, welder and electric drill. What better way to spend a Sunday?

The insulating bricks are down and the floor bricks are all cut and bedded into position. My "indespensible tool" has been manufactured and I also managed to cut all the soldier bricks ready to slap some mortar about.

In one of my previous posts I refered to my daughter as the "Brickie's Apprentice" she took exception to this and now whishes to be known as the Brickie's supervisor.

Here she is in action checking that the insulation bricks go down straight & level!



Paul

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

I didn't get an opportunity to start building my dome this weekend as my bricks & insulating bricks did not turn up on Friday afternoon but you can't complain when you are getting a cheap delivery. I also bough a new brick saw off EBay and I'm still waiting for that to arrive.

I did manage to strip the formwork and to my great relief the slab did not fall down. This isn't really that surprising as I'm sure that there is far more steel in the slab than really necessary. However unless a project is over engineered it is only half done.

I'm jealous of those people who had a full weekend of building as I had to spend part of the weekend shopping!

Paul

[Rodneyf]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

My bricks came from the front fence of a 92 yr old house and are solid reds. I had to clean the mortar off them first and then I used an angle grinder 230cm and a small 115cm to do the finer work with a daimond disk. It was dusty work but worth the work for sure. You might be interested to know that it took me 8 months and 19 days, with about 400 hrs build time and at least 400 stubbies to complete the oven. If you are using FF mortar you will be OK it has performed very well for me and if you follow their curing method you will be cooking in no time with no cracks. Ask Leigh for the curing sheet they supply and stick to it.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

If you are referring to Field furnace insulation bricks......

Thanks Rodney. Field Furnace is the only supplier I can find within a reasonable distance. My only issue at the moment is if I go for the whole fire brick oven it means a 2hr drive to Newcastle with 1T in the trailer and making 2 trips seems unnecessary. I need to find a cheap delivery who will do a back load to Newcastle.

What did you do for cutting your bricks. Did you buy or hire a saw? Where from?

Paul

[Rodneyf]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

If you are referring to Field furnace insulation bricks, they have worked well for me now they are dry, but on the first and second firings the heat did transfer through to my slab and it got up to 70C. It is now not even warm to the touch when the floor is up near 400C. I set mine inside concrete with some more reo and it has worked just fine. The last photo is the earth slab and the first photo is the insulation bricks, i just uploaded in the wrong order.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Mark,

Thanks for the nice comments. I don't think that insulboard is available in Australia (well at least I haven't read in the forum of anyone else using it here) so I will probably use insulating bricks which are available from the refractory brick supplier in Sydney. That way I can get everything from the single supplier.

Paul

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Hey paul,,
looks nice.. your good with a trowel.. will you be using vermicrete or insulboard under the dome ? or is it already in there ?
cheers
mark

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

I poured my hearth slab yesterday so now comes the exciting part of building a brick dome!

The hearth slab pour went fairly straight forward until I ran out of aggregate when I was nearly finished. After I quick run to the landscaping suppliers I was able to finish off with only a 40min break. One thing I did discover is that concrete is heavy stuff when you have to shovel it out of the barrow & up into the form work.

During the week I will organise my bricks and make the decision whether to buy a brick saw or not?

Paul

[Rodneyf]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

You gotta love the freebies. Make sure you put some plastic between your slab and stand because your slab will be inclined to expand horizontally and if the 2 are joined you will get cracks in your stand.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It must have been hotter up there than in sydney going by the empty refreshment bottles on the fence.
Just two questions though, what if the formwork didn't hold, and what are you using to stop the concrete falling off the top of your ply wood?
Good looking so far and keep the pics up.

Rodney,

The bottles lined up on the fence are nothing but a research project. I have seen lots of people posting questions on the forum like "how many bricks does it take to build a 42" WFO" but nowhere have I seen an answer to How many bottles of beer does it take to build a WFO! I should be able to give you an answer in a few months but so far it has taken 12 bottles, 2 cups of coffee and 1 cup of tea.

The form work is 20mm ply held up with plenty of timber so it was never going to fail. I now have 100mm edges on the ply by this was completed at the end of the shift when I was being harassed to finish up and get ready to go out so I didn't have time to get a photo.

I was lucky with the ply and timber as the company I work for has just completed a project at a gas turbine power station and as most of the gear transported to site came in timber crates there was plenty going spare. I even managed to get some leftover insulation that was used around the exhaust of the turbines where the temps are over 500 deg C.

Paul

[Rodneyf]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It must have been hotter up there than in sydney going by the empty refreshment bottles on the fence.
Just two questions though, what if the formwork didn't hold, and what are you using to stop the concrete falling off the top of your ply wood?
Good looking so far and keep the pics up.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

After a week off building due to a family holiday on the NSW north coast (Woolgoolga) I have managed another day of building. The progress is slow but at least things are moving forward!

The hearth slab formwork is now complete (the sides of the formwork are also complete but I didn't get a photo) and I plan to get the reinforcing in during the week and then mix and pour the hearth slab on the weekend.


Formwork construction in progress.


I originally started with the intention of a hexagonal slab, however it didn't fit very well into the tight corner of the fence so the design got changed to an octagon halfway through.


Testing the formwork!

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

The form I used to make sure the first course was straight and centred on the foundation. It was easy enought to put in place as I have not yet stripped the formwork from around my slab so all it took was a few screws into the ply.

It is the weekend tomorrow and there are no social activities and the kids do not require any taxi driving services (well as far as I know but that never stops them from putting in last minute requests) so I will have 2 full days of WFO building.

[KINGRIUS]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Paul, I laid my blocks like you're doing. It looks like you're doing a much neater job of it than I did though. I like the idea of the form you're using. All I can say for the block work on my foundation is: I'm glad it's covered up!

Keep up the good work!
-Darius

[david s]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Paul,
I agree with you entirely, although I have also gained appreciation of good workmanship after seeing some of my own bodgey efforts.