Dome cladding

[BJWatts]

Hi,
In the process of building a wood oven in my back garden in Mere, uk. Have gone for the dome style, and have now got to the point where the brick dome is complete, but with large open joints to the outside of the dome. I was intending to render the dome and fill the joints before insulating, but could anyone recommend a suitable material please. Joints are too wide for fire cement (25mm in places).
Thanks
Brian

[shuboyje]

Re: Dome cladding

25mm is about an inch, that's a pretty large gap. I think your best bet would be a home brew mortar with a larger aggregate to help with the bigger gap. As for how big an aggregate, I would leave that to the masonry experts. Tom(Tscarborough) would be my first choice to field this question.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Dome cladding

You can use the refractory cement, you just need to add grog to it. Take all of your firebrick scraps and beat them into pieces no larger than 1/3 of your gaps ranging down to dust. Discard the dust and use everything 1/16" up to (probably) 1/4 or 3/8". If you are using a high quality dry refractory, you can add up to 1/3 by volume of the grog to make refractory concrete.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Dome cladding

Here is what it looks like (I had red and yellow firebrick scraps) in the bucket and in the concrete:

[Dino69]

Re: Dome cladding

Brian,

I had the same question and I basically did what Tscar said. I took a bunch of scrap fire brick, wrapped them in an old towel and smashed them with the blunt end of a digging bar. Then I mixed them in with the home brew and filled my outside gaps and did a little cladding on the dome.

I used the smalled scraps in the gaps and the larger ones for the cladding. I cut the corner off a freezer zip lock bag and used it with a runnier homebrew for filling my dome gaps. Both areas held up well and have very few if any shrinkage cracks. Very solid.

I am curing my dome now. With all the help from the crew on here it has turned out much better then I ever thought it would.

Good luck.

David

[BJWatts]

Re: Dome cladding

Brilliant, many thanks to shuboyje, Tscarborough and dino69... Great advice.. Will crack on with dome this weekend. Very grateful
Brian