The Brick Arch

[Phartog]

Next step was to create the flue gallery casting using castable refractory. Then cut the bricks for the decorative arch, insulate the gallery with blanket and vermicrete and render over it, using wire ties in the brick joints to help tie the render to the decorative arch. I was there for 3 hrs today, with most of the time spent dry cutting arch bricks with an angle grinder and diamond blade.A render coat and acrylic fishing coat to go. Notice how using this method you can get a really shallow entry which makes the oven so much easier to cook in.

Hi David, I know this is an old post, but I was wondering a bit about your cast flue gallery. I am going to build a similar size oven (I was thinking of 80cm internal diameter) and I also want to have a similar flue. But I was a bit stuck on how deep my flue gallery should be to have this same construction. So I was wondering what is the depth of this refractory cast and rendered flue transition, and what is the depth of your front arch stones (looked like 6 cm thick stones).

Would be great if you could give some insight on this.

[david s]

Those bricks at the front were 8cm thick so the depth of the gallery would have been around10 cm. This is far shallower than most ovens, but I believe it is most important because a shallow entry makes an oven far easier to work. The downside is that smoke can be easier to escape out the front. The efficiency of the gallery is vastly improved by creating a fairly tall funnelled form leading to a decent diameter pipe. This eliminates any escaping smoke issues. The tall funnelled form is quite difficult to build in brick and also leads to excessive weight creating a big heat sink. But easy to form if cast either separately, or in this example, in situ. For an 80cm internal diameter dome you will need a 6”(125mm) stainless flue pipe.