started my build and have some questions.

[gastagg]

autumncs, I would second SableSprings. Use home brew, you'll save a ton and it is easy to mix. Looks like you're cutting bricks and not going whole bricks, which I think most everyone would recommend. You're looking for quick heat up. Also, on front end, I wish I would have doubled my floor insulation from 2" of CalSil to 4" I even had a cheap source but didn't do it. I also went with igloo and stuccoed right over the lathe on top of the blanket. I have a 33" oven and have done parties up to 50 people eating within a 2hr window and with some help, get 3-4 pizza in at a time. Don't know what you're work schedule is, but getting it done by mid-Nov would be great! Keep us posted on the progress!

[thevance53@gmail.com]

I just finished most of my brickwork on my 42" oven with home brew. It is really hard to mess it up. I just used a small storage container for the mix proportions and made either a single batch or a double batch at a time. I have a mister attachment on the hose and when it stiffens up a little, just a touch of water makes it workable again. you spend more time making small batches, but it is easier to keep the mix workable with the smaller batches. I just used the bottom of a 5 gal bucket and mixed everything by hand.

[SableSprings]

You are definitely not alone in the "life has been crazy" class of 2016. Mid November is going to be a little tight for being up and running...especially if SWMBO wants the "finish" to include making it look finished .

Dry cutting: You are in for plenty of dust, but if you soak the bricks first they will cut a bit easier and there won't be so much dust. There are several builders that have purchased a brick chisel and simply whacked the bulk of the bricks in half. It actually works far better than most people expect.

Full bricks: Twice as many needed ($) & lots more wood to bring the oven up to baking temps. Pizza definitely not the primary focus for your use of the oven. The return/cost investment on a Pompeii dome doesn't seem worth it to me...if you were building a barrel vault and thinking of lots of bread (+50 loaves a bake) several times a week, it would be a better investment IMHO. If you insulate well, you'll have at least 3-4 days of cooking time with the "normal" half brick construction. Pizza, breads, roasts, beans ...planning meals & items based on the gradual loss of heat from the oven works well for lots of folks with "half-brick" ovens (not to be read half-baked ) ovens and a plan. I usually do 15-20 loaves of bread and have enough residual heat to easily bake a 20 lb turkey the same day with a batch of baked beans the next day on the single firing with my 39" Pompeii.

If you buy pre-mixed high temp mortar and only cut bricks in half, you'll be spending a lot of money for the pre-mix to fill the gaps. The home brew works really well, is difficult to f*** up, and will be a lot less expensive. Note also that the pre-mixed stuff generally says in the directions to only use for max 1/8-1/4" (2-4 mm) gaps and that's virtually not going to be what you end up with if you don't do angled and beveled cuts on each brick. Go with the home brew!

Looking forward to your progress!

[autumncs]

hey everyone,

I've been missing in action for about a month work has been crazy, and working for yourself it falls on you,lol. And the weather here has been crazy, hot, cold, wet, wet with floods and stupid 100km (60mph) winds. This with spring which I keep some bees there doesn't seem to enough hours in the day and then the young family.

I'm hoping to organise bricks and extras this week and start building the oven,I've been advised by the commander and chief that it needs to be working Mid November, I'm hoping I've left myself time. The days are getting longer now so some after hours might get me over the line.

I have another couple of questions,

I'm getting a dry saw to cut the bricks,I couldn't justify the cost of a wet saw, what is the watch out for? I know the dust is going to be a killer.

Is there any advantage to using full bricks? just a crazy thought of a longer "cook" time but for my limited space I'm thinking not for this build.

My supplier of the bricks has a remix mortar, how easy is it to f*** up the home cooked version? if I can get the supplies.

[staestc]

Sorry for hijacking the thread. I'll keep playing with FreeCAD but will stick with sketchup most likely. My outdoor kitchen and WFO pictures from like 7 years ago are in the outdoor kitchen thread somewhere . Thanks for the feed back folks, and I will pursue the forum a bit more. I don't think FreeCAD was even around back when I did my original designs!

[JRPizza]

No, I'm pretty sure there isn't. I thought about starting one, but never got around to it. That said it might be helpful to have a thread of at least something like "Using FreeCad to plan out your oven".
If you do a forum search though, you can find where I walked a few folks through the process and there might be something helpful there for you. I too really have only scratched the surface with FreeCad. I played with the architecture module a little when I created the "patio view" but find the two part modules do everything I need. They allowed me to model the important parts of the oven, create views so my Wife could see what I was planning on doing, and I have even created a few parts to print with my son's 3D printer.

[staestc]

I'm very familiar with sketch up, but have only scratched the surface with FreeCAD. Mostly only played with part module and part design workbenches. Is there a FreeCAD thread on Fornobravo?

[JRPizza]

Travis, as a FreeCad user, it is possible to do what you are asking, but at least at the skill level I am at it would take a crazy amount of time for what I think are diminishing returns. The beauty of FreeCad is you can relatively quickly make top and side views that allow precision determination of the placement of the oven on the hearth and the location of the inner arch relative to the dome.
It is relatively easy to create 3D solids of your chimney and any other square/rectangular objects that have linear orientation, but wrapping 3D beveled/tapered bricks in a spherical orientation is probably something easier done in a program like Sketchup. You can fairly easily make solid models to see what your completed oven might look like, but they would not be at the brick by brick detail. Below is one I made when I was first thinking about building an oven - it's pretty crude but helped me visualize what I was trying to do.

[fnbroken]

I started doing this with the inner arch design....and whilst it would be super to finish it, I had sufficient of the design concepts down to want to spend the time in getting the site ready for building my WFO...that, and deejahoh's dome calculator spreadsheet does everything you could need and more. It would take tediously long to build all that in FreeCAD

The designs I have done give me more than enough to visualise my oven and how I want it to look plus all the measurements required to get the placement right.

You can see the designs in my build thread (link in signature block)

[staestc]

Hey buddy, download freeCAD, drop me a PM with your email address and I can send you the files..you can look at all the dimensions/measurements and play to your hearts content.

I found once I had something close to what I wanted it was a lot easier to understand how to manipulate the designs.

The angle shouldn't be a problem, wont look symmetrical to my preferences - but who is going to complain to the boss!

I will take a look the FB pompeii oven plans on the vent placement and play a bit for you - sorry not much time during the week. Placement of the arch depends on the width of opening you go for, and then how deep you want it. But on the FB design I think the inside of the arch lines up with the inside of the oven dome wall.

I have seen the angled (tapered) bricks but if you read the forum most people think only beveling the bricks is worth the effort. To bevel you need to buy a saw. If you buy the saw you might as well leverage the investment and cut exact tapers if you really want to as this taper changes at every course in the dome build and vents. Tapered bricks only really save a bit on the mortar consumption - but if your using homebrew then the extra expense of the tapered bricks isnt worth it. I would also say that if you are going to buy a saw, then forget the FB plans and run with one of the vastly improved designs that has been done here on the forum.

This is where I got to whilst working thru what I was going to do.

Please note, I have not yet built anything - just been sifting through many many build threads and absorbing the wealth of knowledge here and trying to put that into a logical plan for my build - its all theory to me right now!

Greg, how far have you gone with FreeCAD models of ovens? Have you constructed individual dome bricks with a component for each level of the dome and assembled them? Is that even possible with FreeCAD?

[fnbroken]

Hey buddy, download freeCAD, drop me a PM with your email address and I can send you the files..you can look at all the dimensions/measurements and play to your hearts content.

I found once I had something close to what I wanted it was a lot easier to understand how to manipulate the designs.

The angle shouldn't be a problem, wont look symmetrical to my preferences - but who is going to complain to the boss!

I will take a look the FB pompeii oven plans on the vent placement and play a bit for you - sorry not much time during the week. Placement of the arch depends on the width of opening you go for, and then how deep you want it. But on the FB design I think the inside of the arch lines up with the inside of the oven dome wall.

I have seen the angled (tapered) bricks but if you read the forum most people think only beveling the bricks is worth the effort. To bevel you need to buy a saw. If you buy the saw you might as well leverage the investment and cut exact tapers if you really want to as this taper changes at every course in the dome build and vents. Tapered bricks only really save a bit on the mortar consumption - but if your using homebrew then the extra expense of the tapered bricks isnt worth it. I would also say that if you are going to buy a saw, then forget the FB plans and run with one of the vastly improved designs that has been done here on the forum.

This is where I got to whilst working thru what I was going to do.

Please note, I have not yet built anything - just been sifting through many many build threads and absorbing the wealth of knowledge here and trying to put that into a logical plan for my build - its all theory to me right now!

[autumncs]

Wow, I had never heard of anybody using a prefabricated hearth, but a web search turned up several oven builds from your part of the world that have. Please keep posting - it will be interesting to follow your build!

JRPIZZA I've seen 2 or 3 on the forum, after I had done my research that it was possible and looked on here the see if anyone had done it. There's two options is Aust,for the Hebel panel as in the panels (which are meant for walls) and Hebel flooring, which is the same as the panels however it is in a tongue and groove format and only comes in 1.8 mtr lengths.

fnbroken, Greg thanks for the image however it is so small I can't read it. Yes I need to work out the landing and position. I was going to cut the corner at a 45 however the minister for war and peace said it would look weird having a point hanging and who am I to argue. Which would made the landing easier.

Another question, where do you take the vent landing measurements from? From the arch or from the intersection. I know not a big deal.

fnbroken have you seen the fire bricks that are already halved and angled? The local supplier here has them and wondering if they would be any good. I'm going back there today to find out more, I basically dismissed them however it might be worth while (they cost more) as I wouldn't need to hire/buy a wet saw.

[JRPizza]

Wow, I had never heard of anybody using a prefabricated hearth, but a web search turned up several oven builds from your part of the world that have. Please keep posting - it will be interesting to follow your build!

[fnbroken]

Thanks for the extra measurements - you posted as I did

Revised floor hearth plan. 810mm diameter = 405 radius, 115mm firebrick, 125mm for insulation (50mm blanket, 50mm vermicrete and render (25m m)).

Ive pushed it back as far as it can go - leaving a 50mm surround to work in (and that will be hard to get a good finish). However the is room to move it forward depending on the outer vent depth (send me the measurements) you go with.

I would move it forward as far as possible, stick with 810mm and go for more insulation (extra 50mm vermicrete)...Depends on how much of a landing out the front you want/need....

[fnbroken]

Hi autumncs,

See some pics below of your setup. I've shown it as a model with the inner arch a part of the dome, however it gives you an idea of your space/positioning.

I've assumed the sides are 900 wide (if it is more I can recut for you). Based on this, you will have about 380mm to fit your outer vent.

Cheers

Greg