36" in Seattle

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Keith, what do you mean by "bought some material for the enclosure"? I like the circus tent enclosure you have now. It's unique, colorful and keeps out the rain .

Seriously though, your fire wood looks good. I've found that the ONLY people to ever buy and receive a true, full cord of wood are those with full-size pick-ups that go there with their own trucks.

BTW: if you haven't done anything to the angular gaps, I'm with dmun. Yours are so small, I would leave them alone. I had a a couple larger gaps and I shoved mortar in with my fingers. Your interior is so beautiful, it would be hard to do that neatly.

Your oven looks great, well-made, artistic...I think your level must be defective, take it back

Cheers, Dino

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Bought some firewood. The guy said it was two half-cords, one green maple that I'll use next year and one fir, dry and ready...plus a few cedar logs (in the background of the first photo). I realize they aren't ideal for oven use.

I'm not sure they actually look like half cords, but I don't want to bother myself about it too much. He was just so nice.

Also bought some materials for the enclosure: hardibacker, chickenwire, pretty basic stuff. I've already scored and snapped the 1/2" hardibacker several times without any trouble. Turned out to be pretty easy with the carbide-tipped scoring tool.

With any luck I might do a curing fire this weekend. All I need to do is stuff the InsWool under the screen.

Cheers!

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Here is what you should do. Take your level and your tape and visit the best example of masonry in your town. Use the level on corners, door frames, window frames etc. Use your tape on head and bed joints on random locations. You will find that they are not plumb and level or consistent.

Brilliant. Thanks.

Cheers!

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" in Seattle

If you will forgive me a short rant...

I work in the masonry industry. I sell brick and CMU and all associated accessories, primarily for commercial and civil applications. The most aggravating part of my job is dealing with architects and engineers who do not have a firm grasp of masonry construction, yet attempt to design and implement masonry structures.

I have spent the last 3 weeks clearing RFI's for submittals on a project dealing with the fire rating of CMU. 3 weeks of my life attempting to explain and educate degreed engineers and architects on a very simple and easy to grasp concept that is laid out in ASTM standards. One week involved the distinction between "silacious" and "contains silica". Another involved which of the 2 available standards to use, even though the design and material exceeded EITHER by over 200%!


Here is what you should do. Take your level and your tape and visit the best example of masonry in your town. Use the level on corners, door frames, window frames etc. Use your tape on head and bed joints on random locations. You will find that they are not plumb and level or consistent.

Now step back 50 feet and eyeball the same areas, and hold the level up for the run of masonry. Viola! It will be perfect.

Mortar does not hold masonry together, it holds it apart, and allows imperfect units to form consistent structures.

[vintagemx0]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Dude, with all due respect... You're on the right track knowing what is "wrong" and planning to correct it as best you can. Leave it at that. You're build is awesome and any imperfections you know about others probably won't. Besides, this is a one-off hand-built appliance and some of it's imperfections are actually assets. I know our build has many imperfections but they really add a sort of rustic charm. As Tscarborough says; "Worry less, cook more". Very profound statement. You obviously have a sort of vision of what you are striving toward. Do your best, but don't sweat anything that is less than perfection. I really believe that you'll be just as happy in the long run.

You're building a fine oven. Any artisan "imperfections" make it much more interesting in my opinion. I know our oven is less than perfect, but I can't even describe how awesome the chicken we baked today in it was. We did baguettes too, and they were simply divine. Rustic imperfections somehow make it even better!

Keep on keep'n on!

Ken Morgan

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Worry less, cook more.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Built the chimney shoe.

There are not one, but two problems with the vent. First, the upper surface is not level. Second the sides (the triangles) are not symmetrical. This is more readily apparent if you carefully study their positions relative to the individual arch wedges under them.

The chimney shoe corrects the leveling problem by tilting slightly at each of the three brick layers such that the upper surface of the shoe is perfectly level. However, the pipe will obviously lean to the south when placed inside the shoe since it will rest on the vent. Therefore, I will probably put a thin layer of mortar on the upper surface of the vent inside the shoe on the south side so as to level the pipe's footprint.

As for the asymmetry there are a few options. The front facade of the oven will probably consist of a stucco-like surface that wraps around the brick of the arch, vent, and chimney shoe. If the stucco is perfectly flush with the arch and vent (the shoe protrudes over the vent about 3/4" incidentally, look closely) then I could angle-grind the two external triangular bricks on the right side back a bit from the front face and stucco over them partially to simulate the appearance on the left side. Alternatively, my final stucco (surface bonding cement, whatever) surface might protrude out from the brick anyway, in which case I can do the same thing without grinding the brick back, just stucco over the right triangles a bit.

It will depend on how the final enclosure comes together, so I'll figure it out then. I'm not too worried, so long as people don't get vertigo when they look at the oven.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

You haven't seen my foundation slab or my hearth then. They were abysmal...but I'm learning.

[vintagemx0]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Kebwi,

If you've never done masonry work before, you have definitely picked-up some serious skills!

Nice work!

Ken

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Framed up the cage that will hold about three inches of loose InsWool HP over the dome. It's basically the same stuff as the blankets that most FBers use. The cage is ordinary aluminum screen door material. I opted against the fiberglass screen although I don't know, maybe it would work too. Obviously, plastic mesh would be a bad idea as it might melt.

The cage is held down to the hearth with tapcons (second photo). I intend to fill the bottom three inches (next to the InsBlock 19 boards) with loose vermiculite, then go InsWool from there on up to the apex. Hopefully the vermiculite will hold the tabs (second photo) down and not work its way out through the bottom before I get a chance to build or otherwise enclose the next layer of construction (either vermicrete or an enclosure with vermiculite fill).

I am a little unsure how I will keep the InsWool from slipping out the front edge of the cage. The front edge will be held down to some degree by a wire tieing the left and right sides together through the groove behind the vent, but it may not be tight enough to prevent the InsWool from slipping out. I would duct-tape it down, but then it'll melt later which might not be pleasant. Another idea is to mortar the edge of the screen to the outside of the vent. Whatever, I'll figure something out.

The third and fourth photos show the chimney shoe. I'm using an 8" double-walled pipe (10" exterior). The basic premise is easy to visualize from the photos. The shoe will be three layers tall. The fourth photo shows that I beveled (chamfered) the front-lower edge of the two shoe bricks for the lowest shoe level that will extend slightly past the entry arch. It'll make sense in later posts.

As a side-note, the shoe bricks are the first bricks of the entire project that I used an angle-grinder to complete. All prior bricks were formed entirely with the tile saw. For these bricks, I hollowed out the curve with the saw as best as possible, then took an angle grinder with a masonry blade and smoothed it out. Worked like a charm, although I'm unclear whether it is appropriate to use a grinder as a "sander" as opposed to edge on like I used it to cut rebar. Hopefully this was kosher...or at least safe. Sure as hell did a number on the masonry blade, that's for certain.

Cheers!

[dmun]

Re: 36" in Seattle

BTW, does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should fill the angular gaps on the backside (interior side) of the arch (last photo)? I could cut some wedges and mortar them in. I'm unsure if it would help the smoke escape more efficiently or if it would help mitigate spalling along the exposed edges.

I'm going to vote for leave it alone. Cracking is not unheard-of in brick ovens and to have brick slips unsupported by anything but mortar is not necessary. Also, I think your dome is so well built that there won't be any problem with turbulence from those little dips.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

It's hard to see in that interior picture in the last post, but if you look carefully or look at (much) earlier pictures of my arch construction, the inside edge of the interior arch is also beveled, for exactly the purpose of easing the smoke's path.

Cheers!

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I would definitely fill those gaps. I plan on chamfering the inside edge of the upper bricks, similar to how you did the outside of yours. Looks great, BTW.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

A few more shots of the completed brickwork (assuming I don't do any further brickwork around the chimney area, which isn't necessarily decided). I removed the floor boards so the interior shots are now "complete".

BTW, does anyone have any thoughts on whether I should fill the angular gaps on the backside (interior side) of the arch (last photo)? I could cut some wedges and mortar them in. I'm unsure if it would help the smoke escape more efficiently or if it would help mitigate spalling along the exposed edges. Thoughts?

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Yes, it's my belief it will make the pizza taste better. All I really did was clean the hell out of it so there isn't mortar all over the place. Lots of scrubbing, lots of water.

Seriously, we'll see if I can make the outside look any good. I'm totally weirded out by the external construction phase.

...and thank you for the kind comments.