Alumina bricks worth buying?

[vegandaddymikey]

Hi,
Thanks in advance...I am new here...

Are these bricks worth buying? $4/each and I spoke with the guy and he said they are for forging and good up to 3000 degrees.

I don't want to spend time cutting them, and I don't want to spend a lot of money on the oven, in general. So would these bricks be a good idea? They seem like a good price, but I'll need a few dozen and that is adding up.

On a related note, if anyone has a link to very affordable DIY, I'd appeeciate it. Thanks

[vegandaddymikey]

So I forgot to include the link, and now it's gone. The bricks are massive, and slightly trapezoidal. I didn't want to cut them but they are so big and look so good, that now I think I should go through all the work and cut them. If I cut them in quarters and lay them on their side, they will be slightly tapered and I think will really help make the dome shape. So rather than go with a cheaper and maybe easier build, I'm gonna change it up and go full on for the brick by brick approach, buying more bricks, if and when I can afford. Sigh..I guess...

[Tscarborough]

They will work fine for the dome, but do not use them for the floor, you will have burnt ass crust every time.

[vegandaddymikey]

They will work fine for the dome, but do not use them for the floor, you will have burnt ass crust every time.

Shoot! Really? I was planning on building a base with them, and then covering with unglazed masonry tiles, like I hear about being available for $1 and able to be used as a poor man's pizza stone in a regular oven. Would that still be too hot? I don't really have the means to use a lot of insulation, so I figured if I used all these massive bricks, that may make up for it. I never thought they'd make it too hot though!

The guy said they have alumina in them. I have no idea. They are huge though. I'll work on a picture but they are large squares, that are actually just barley tapered, kinda trapezoidal I guess. Well slightly concave is actually probably most accurate. If you laid them down in a circle, they'd probably make a massive circle, with dozens of bricks. They are super thick, and so slightly tapered/curved, I figured if I cut them in quarters, mortar will be enough to account for any gaps from the curving, and I can either use them as squares, or wing it with the natural taper and hope for the best.

Also, sounds like cutting these in straight quarters is not a good investment. A proper masonry blade would be better use of my money, than paying some guy to cut them all in generic squares. Darn, this was supposed to be an easy project.

[Tscarborough]

They are kiln lining firebrick, either high or super high duty. Hard to cut, and very conductive.

[RandyJ]

You want to make sure that you get the right kind of bricks for the floor for sure or it is all for not. And a thicker base is only going to make it harder to maintain temps. You need to do at least some insulating. You don't need to go crazy like some of us do like me but it represents just a very small fraction of the total build. I went way over board and spent I think about 800$ that was 48 sf of 2" ceramic board, 3 boxes of blanket, and 36 cf of vermiculite.

As far as for use on the dome the bricks should be just fine. The bricks I used I think we're like 68% alumina for the dome and I have seem no Problems at all. But if they are thick then make sure you have a way to cut them. You can cut up 3.5" with a 10" saw. Any thing more than that and you will need a 14" saw. What ever you decide to do good luck.

Randy

[vegandaddymikey]

Thanks for the responses. I ended up doing a modified barrel vault style, using a stainless steel barrel cut in half lengthwise, and I had some sort of manufactured base stone from a friend that I used as a floor. It was bound for a restaurant pizza oven and makes a great floor. (I cracked it, burning the oven at a very high temp to get rid of the stainless steel barrel's smell, but it works fine). In the end, I used the heavy duty bricks as walls for the barrel vault, and put the barrel on top of the walls, in lieu of making a dome. The floor stone i had was 2'x3' and the barrel was 2'x3', so that's the direction i went...