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Yes, even Satan likes wood fired ovens. All kidding aside my name is Nathan or Nata as they call me here in South America. I've been interested in WFO's for a long time but up until recently I haven't been in a position to even think about building one. That being said, I'm still not quite ready to build but I'm getting close and thus my lurking in the background for about a year. I'm torn between two distinctly different types of WFO's, the round dome Pompeii type and Rado's MTO.
My first project is going to be a cob oven which I intend to build in Mexico where I also share my time.
Here in Colombia I can only find fire bricks with 40% alumina or more. They do however, in addition to straight fire bricks, have fire bricks that are slightly wedge shaped to facilitate the curvature of the overhead dome structure.
I actually went to the factory where they make them (after searching for two days I finally found it) and was greeted by one of the owners. He told me that I was very lucky to find him there and that he rarely visits the actual factory and normally spends his time in the corporate office. The brick factory is only one of his businesses and he explained that he and his partners actually sort of fell into the brick making business. His profession is designing and overseeing the construction of high temperature ovens and furnaces made from high alumina content fire bricks.
The factory itself is a very old facility and has been in operation for almost 100 years. They had several different types of kilns where they fire the bricks along with areas where they mix all of the ingredients for the different types of bricks they produce. One interesting thing I learned is that they add ground up sawdust to certain mixes and depending upon the percentage of sawdust they add to the mix it makes the bricks lighter. They use these bricks as "insulator" bricks. The ground up sawdust burns off in the firing process leaving the brick with a very porous texture not to mention making it much lighter than a normal fire brick.
To shorten my story it appears I made a new friend and he and his wife have invited me to join them for dinner at their country house just outside of Medellin, Colombia (I wonder if he has a WFO in his backyard?).
In conclusion, I look forward to participating here on FB and hopefully I'll absorb enough knowledge to build my WFO without too many headaches.
My first project is going to be a cob oven which I intend to build in Mexico where I also share my time.
Here in Colombia I can only find fire bricks with 40% alumina or more. They do however, in addition to straight fire bricks, have fire bricks that are slightly wedge shaped to facilitate the curvature of the overhead dome structure.
I actually went to the factory where they make them (after searching for two days I finally found it) and was greeted by one of the owners. He told me that I was very lucky to find him there and that he rarely visits the actual factory and normally spends his time in the corporate office. The brick factory is only one of his businesses and he explained that he and his partners actually sort of fell into the brick making business. His profession is designing and overseeing the construction of high temperature ovens and furnaces made from high alumina content fire bricks.
The factory itself is a very old facility and has been in operation for almost 100 years. They had several different types of kilns where they fire the bricks along with areas where they mix all of the ingredients for the different types of bricks they produce. One interesting thing I learned is that they add ground up sawdust to certain mixes and depending upon the percentage of sawdust they add to the mix it makes the bricks lighter. They use these bricks as "insulator" bricks. The ground up sawdust burns off in the firing process leaving the brick with a very porous texture not to mention making it much lighter than a normal fire brick.
To shorten my story it appears I made a new friend and he and his wife have invited me to join them for dinner at their country house just outside of Medellin, Colombia (I wonder if he has a WFO in his backyard?).
In conclusion, I look forward to participating here on FB and hopefully I'll absorb enough knowledge to build my WFO without too many headaches.
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