Welcome & Cracking!

[pellecchiaa]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to the formabravo.com pizza oven community. SoI'd like to first say, Hello! I have started my build and successfully built my new pizza oven. As this was a birthday gift for my father, I did purchase the "Superior Clay Oven" to speed up the process to hit his birthday deadline. The oven is done is functional and cooks great! I just need to invest more time veneering the stone to get that finished look.

Reason for this post, I have fired up the oven a few times now but ran into an issue with cracking. The internal and external dome and back of the over has cracked, and depending how hot i get it a little bit a smoke can escape. (not much that is concerning, but worth a mention)

From what I have read, cracking is very normal. I was just wanted know some pointers on how any you guys would handle such a crack? My plan was to obviously patch it up as well as I could. I attempted to reseal it with refactory cement but that did not full seal the exterior crack, as it reopened due to expansion. The vendor that sold it mentioned to seal it up with a heat resistant cloth and more refectory cement. (Similar technique to taping dry wall cracks) and adding more insulating cement on the top.

My pizza oven design was to eventually mosaic natural stone onto the dome to keep the circular/dome look and feel, I?m just worried that no matter what I do to seal that exterior crack it will still effect the finishing stone.

Any thoughts in regards to this I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks everyone!

-Adam

[boerwarrior]

Re: Welcome & Cracking!

I used a fairly wet refractory cement slurry to fill the cracks in my brick oven when the cracks were at their largest (i.e. the oven was hot). The cracks were still noticeable but not as much

[Les]

Re: Welcome & Cracking!

Adam, is your oven already insulated or is the structure a refract cast? Hard to tell from the pic.

[pellecchiaa]

Re: Welcome & Cracking!

Adam, is your oven already insulated or is the structure a refract cast? Hard to tell from the pic.

Les, the structure underneath the insulating cement is a precasted clay oven.

The kit came with 5 secioned peices including the dome where i combined the joints with refactory cement. the sides of the oven had empty cores meant to be filled and covered with insulating cement.

so what is pictured is the insulating cement covering the clay oven. it is mentioned in this kit that the dome may crack which i understand im just concerned of the expansion and contraction if i want to add nice finishing stone.

[pellecchiaa]

Re: Welcome & Cracking!

Hopefully this picture will help.

[Les]

Re: Welcome & Cracking!

Wow - that's a little bit of a challenge. It's not the "standard crack" we normally see. I think I would try and cover it with something that can tolerate the expansion / contraction you will see. First choice would be a thin layer of fire blanket - then you could stucco and tile like you wanted. Second would be maybe a layer of vermiculite and stucco on that. The stuff will give you some wiggle room. You need a base that will "slip" and allow your tile to stay where you set it.