please help with my dome oven

[hmc3142]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Les, Your oven is beautiful! I like the way you have all the peels hooked on the side of the brick. I saw that you put vermiculite. Did that go on after the insulation blanket? Tell me if I have the right order of things. After the dome is made you can put an inch of high heat mortar around the dome. Next is the 3 inch insulation blanket. Then there is the chicken wire. Now, what goes on top of the wire? Thanks...Mina

[david s]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Mina,
I forgot to add that the angle grinder is quite a dangerous tool, take care.
Regarding the steel stand, it all depends on how heavy your oven will be. If you have a look at my website you can see how I've done a steel stand. I used rolled hollow section, but now use 1/4" x 2" galv. steel angle. I'm sure you could get someone to weld it up for you.
Dave
http://www.davespizzaovens.com.au

[Archena]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Honey, if you want a metal stand, FB sells them and yes, they work just fine. Just hunt around the store (I'd link it for you but I'm on dial up and loading some stuff right now - it's kinda slow).

If you were considering cob, you might want something like I'm planning which is a wood stand sealed in cob. Just like cob walls, once properly sealed it shouldn't degrade and although it seems counter intuitive wood can support even a large oven. I'm basing the idea off of cob houses so it hasn't yet been tried. (I'm still renting so no oven for me... yet...)

Or do the steel stand like David said - you shouldn't have trouble hiring someone to make it for you and would save money assembling the supplies yourself. I will say I don't think a steel stand is a DIY project for someone with no welding experience so hire someone. Bad welding will do very, very bad things when it fails under the load.

[hmc3142]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Thanks once again for the advice. David, when I saw your oven that is exactly what I wanted to do. That table looked perfect for me! May I ask what size is the table and your oven. I only want to make a 34 inch oven. I just want something plain and simple as far as the base because I can't deal with the heavy lifting. What is the insulation you used on top of the table. Is it an insulation board and how many inches thick is it? Archena, there's no place to reply to your message unless I am using this forum incorrectly, since I have never used a forum please excuse my internet skills. I will have the table welded correctly if I go that path. I am not making a cob oven even though it seems much easier and less expensive. Well. it's Sunday and instead of making my sauce I will be outside leveling the ground for this project. No macaroni today! Everyone, have a wonderful Memorial Day!

[david s]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Mina,
My oven weighs only 250 Kgs and internally it's 21" I'm not sure how heavy your 34" oven will be but it would have to be at least double that. I designed a recess in the supporting slab which contains insulation and also the floor has an insulating layer cast into it. This is probably a bit too involved for what you want. You would probably be better to sit the oven floor on some reinforced aerated concrete (sold in Australia as brand Hebel) this stuff acts as both support and insulation and is a third the weight of the equivalent volume of normal concrete. The size of my supporting slab is 910 x 910 mm.

[fxpose]

Re: please help with my dome oven

My round stand diameter for my 34" oven is only 48".......that's because I used 3" inner dome walls (instead of 4.5") up along the sides. You would need at least a 50" x 50" slab to build your oven onto. If you can somehow swing it you should go with concrete blocks for the stand for something this heavy.

George

[Archena]

Re: please help with my dome oven

... Archena, there's no place to reply to your message unless I am using this forum incorrectly, since I have never used a forum please excuse my internet skills. I will have the table welded correctly if I go that path. I am not making a cob oven even though it seems much easier and less expensive.

Don't sweat it - we all were beginners once.

The way to answer a particular post is to click on the Quote button at the bottom of the post. That will open the Reply window with the post already quoted inside. Just type either above or below the quoted section like you would for any other reply and hit Submit Reply when you're done.

[quote ] quoted part [/ quote]

Okay, when you're comfortable with that you can split up the quotation just like I did. See the funny looking line just above this one? That's how the thing works. The parts in brackets are called 'tags' - in this case, quote tags. Now, to make them actually work you take out the extra space and you get this:

quoted part

Whatever you enclose in those tags will appear as quoted text. The first one has no back slash and the last one always has a backslash. That's pretty much all you have to remember - you can fool around with it to figure it out.

When (not if - 'cause we've all done it) you mess up you can still fix it even after it's been posted. Look in the post for the Edit button. Click on that and it will open the post up in the Reply window where you can change it.

Well. it's Sunday and instead of making my sauce I will be outside leveling the ground for this project. No macaroni today! Everyone, have a wonderful Memorial Day!

You too!

[hmc3142]

Re: please help with my dome oven

David,

I never heard of aerated concrete but I will definitely look into it. Thanks so much for all the info.

[hmc3142]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Here is how to chisel a brick in half the easy way:

Use a 4" brickset chisel. Score all four sides where you want it to break by holding the chisel perpendicular to the brick and tapping it 2 or three times. Not beating on it, just tapping enough that it makes a mark. Give each edge a light tap to free up the corner. After all four sides and edges have been scored, lay the brick with the biggest face to you on something clean, level, and dense. Hit the brickset once on the score with a medium strike. Not too hard, and it may take a couple of hits, but it will break pretty much on the line with clean edges.

Not hard at all, you just have to convince the brick that it WANTS to break right where you want it to.

Thanks so much Tscarborough! I will not use a saw, I am hoping that it won't be too difficult to chisel all them bricks. If I see that I am having a hard time, then I will have to look into getting them sawed for me. I am new to this forum but everyone has been so helpful and I really do appreciate all the wonderful advice. Thanks to everyone again!...Mina

[fxpose]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Although not as quick and efficient as an angle grinder if you have a dremel tool you can use that to cut or grind small areas rather accurately after splitting the bricks, as in tapering the inside faces of each brick if you choose to do that.

George

[Archena]

Re: please help with my dome oven

...on something clean, level, and dense...

May I suggest a 16 x 16 paver if you don't already have something to use? $3.50 from Wally World.

[dmun]

Re: please help with my dome oven

I never heard of aerated concrete but I will definitely look into it.

In most of the civilized world aerated autoclaved concrete or AAC is a standard building material, you can get at home centers and the like. It's pretty amazing stuff. It has tremendous insulation qualities, and it has such sound deadening properties that a hotel built of the stuff had to put alarms in every room because you couldn't hear the ones in the hallway. Of course it costs a little more than standard concrete blocks, and nothing passes muster in the US if it's not cheap. We also have next to no energy efficiency standards compared to Europe. Want to know the way the rest of the world builds? Google Passivhaus. But the way things stand now, AAC (or Hebel) blocks are an exceedingly rare item here in the States.

Not hard at all, you just have to convince the brick that it WANTS to break right where you want it to.

Good luck with the brickset thing. Like glasscutting, it's a skill i never mastered.

[BackyardPermaculture]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Mina, like Dave I've just made a fairly light-weight oven (my dome is a clay mix). I was able to support it on a timber base over which is a sheet of FC sheeting and a 4 inch layer of aerated concrete blocks. This was very economical and quick to put in place - using the AAC blocks is cheap and you have your sub-floor insulation in place in about 30 minutes!

I know someone who made a typical concrete block base who also used the ACC for the under-hearth insulation effectively. He supported the sheet of FC board with lengths of angle iron. The AAC blocks are REALLY fragile though; once they're tiled or rendered they're good.

Cheers, Mick

[Archena]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Um, what's an 'FC'?

[BackyardPermaculture]

Re: please help with my dome oven

Um, what's an 'FC'?

Sorry, "Fibre Cement Sheeting" - must be called something else in other countries?