Using Porland/Fireclay cement for a Chiminea?

[dmun]

Re: Using Porland/Fireclay cement for a Chiminea?

That mixture is specifically a mortar: meant to put firebricks together. I don't think it has big enough aggregate to work in a thick layer.

You might want to look into building it with cobb. At least if it failed you could hose it into the lawn.

As a side note, at least around here, chimineas, the mexican terra cotta ones, are close to free. No one ever uses them, and they are on craigslist all the time for anyone willing to haul them off.

[thijsatteiltje]

Hi,

I'm am new to this site and after reading about a lot of the projects I am tempted to chance my current project into to pizza oven project ;-)

I live in Wellington, New zealand, summer is coming and I want to make an outdoor fireplace.

I want to build a small Chiminea (the mexican clay type round heater, Chimenea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and was thinking of using ferrocement with the 1.3.1.1 Portland/clay mixture that is mentioned in the Primer on this site (High Heat Mortar Primer)

Plan is to wrap a large beach ball with 5 layers of chicken wire and apply the cement in layers, perhaps letting it cure and applying another layer of chicken wire and cement to gain mass.

I would construct the chimney in the same way.

This would be my first attempt so my main focus is on costs and getting moving as soon as possible. I fully expect the first version to only half perfect ;-) but building it is half the fun.

Does anybody have experience with making larger structures with Portland/fireclay cement? Any thoughts?

Thanks a million!

Regards,

Matt