Massive firebrick

[Yokosuka dweller]

50 years ago my wife's grandfather used to have a house in our backyard. He had a fireplace, apparently. I've found more than 100 firebricks buried around the rotting foundation of the remains of the house up there and used them all for my pizza oven build. Actually discovering those firebricks was what gave me the idea to build a WFO in the first place. I hope he's happy the bricks found a good use.

Yesterday I went up there to look for more bricks and found some to use for my outer arch. But I also found 3 massive fire "blocks" - measuring 9" x 9" x 4.5" and called SKR SK 34. I'm attaching a picture of one. I won't have any use for them unless for a bbq later on, but still haven't seen such size refractory before so thought I'd share it here for curiosity and if these sizes are commonly found/used elsewhere.

[Alomran]

Hi Yokosuka
I have purchased 5 of these from a guy in the East part of London. I am still puzzled by their size! I was hoping to use them in my oven, but thought they were too scarce to be cut into small pieces!

[Yokosuka dweller]

Really you did? Were they expensive? I also haven't used them for anything. Trying to cut them with my 10cm hacksaw diamond blade would destroy my saw I think. These are super massive and dense. I suppose if you were to build a barrel shaped oven, then such bricks as corner stones between floor and corners of the walls would work well. Or if you have a low-arch dome then these would make a good buttress if interlocked at the base of the arch. But to cut them...I haven't done that. Maybe I will use them as stepping stones or stair pieces...

[Alomran]

Really you did? Were they expensive? I also haven't used them for anything. Trying to cut them with my 10cm hacksaw diamond blade would destroy my saw I think. These are super massive and dense. I suppose if you were to build a barrel shaped oven, then such bricks as corner stones between floor and corners of the walls would work well. Or if you have a low-arch dome then these would make a good buttress if interlocked at the base of the arch. But to cut them...I haven't done that. Maybe I will use them as stepping stones or stair pieces...

In fact I have used only one of them to connect the full brick 230mm thick dome to the arch. I remember there were over 100 of those bricks and I had no space on my trailer to get them on top of the 400 bricks standard I had purchased. To this day I regret not buying the entire lot.