Back in Action!

[Sailfish]

I started building the stand long before I had the oven. Not too many surprises except that now it seems that refractory experts say that insulation on top of the slab would be more efficient. I opted to put it underneath because elevations in the stand design I selected were pretty much concrete.. Pun intended. I'll post a pic showing that I used 3" of castable insulation under 2.75" of high alumina concrete. The edges outside the oven floor are a full 5 3/4" of alumina concrete. I'm hopeing that the thinner layer of directly under the floor tiles will heat up faster and be less apt to sap the heat away through too much thermal mass. I built the round base by building a form from metal stud sheathed with FRP and filling it with concrete. Scraps of the FRP are reused here forming the round refractory concrete slab.

[Sailfish]

Here's the slab after I mixed and poured it by myself today. I died a thousand deaths! But it's over now and I look forward to stacking the modular oven on it soon. The slab is lower than top of the bricks so that the floor tiles and landing will be flush with the top of the soldier coarse of the cantilevered landing.

[DrakeRemoray]

Looks great! You deserve a cold beer.

[dmun]

rebar

Here's some dumb rebar questions, as I've never used the stuff. Do you tie it together at the intersections? How do you keep in, presumably, in the center of the slab? Do you prop the rebar grid up with something while you pour?

[james]

The famous concrete dobie

You can buy a nifty, all-in-one concrete dobie that ties the rebar together and off-sets the rebar height. Home Depot sells them.

If you are feeling poor, you can use brick chips for the offset and a ball of wire.

I tied all the rebar for the foundation of our last home addition -- never again...

James

[Sailfish]

Yes, rebar is tied together at the intersections with "tie wire". I'm not really sure it has to be. I think it just aids in keeping it in place while your pushing concrete around. For larger more elaborate projects, particularly upright walls it is a must because it would just fall apart. I have lots of bar in the round base. I propped the bar up over the insulation so the concrete would totaly suround the bar. I think even this is not nesessary if you are using vermiculite concrete as the insulator. I have seen diagrams where they just lay it on top at "halfpour". Probably a lot easier.