42" in Portland OR

[Bartondad]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

sorry this is late in the thread but...when you poured your hearth did you fill your dry stacked cinder blocks as well? I see lots of dry stacks but never filled and I assume you do that when you pour your hearth. Thanks for the pics and keep up the good work. I'm at the stacking stage and am debating filling them now but it seems redundant.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

3:1:1:1 is pretty rich, you may have to lean it out a bit (add more sand) and keep it a little drier than you may have it.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

"I soak the brick until the bubbles stop coming out of it, and wet down the area to be mortared. Then I butter the mortar onto the bricks already stuck on the oven"



I missed this. You do not need to soak the brick, and you do not butter the laid brick, you butter the brick you are laying. Do not coat the brick in a nice even layer of mortar, butter the edges and leave a gap in the center, kind of like this (not this much though, about half as much).

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

I believe you should fill everyother core with concrete and have rebar embedded in the floor. You need a solid tied together dry stack base to form to for your hearth pour.

[kbartman]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

Thanks for all the encouragement. I keep telling my wife that I'm not crazy with this project, but she doesn't quite believe me.

Made some progress this weekend - got the insulation cut, laid and leveled the floor,

Greeting Portland. My whole family thinks I'm crazy
I'm curious about the insulation you used it looks like FB?s brand. I bought FB?S brand I thought it was somewhat fragile and thought I read that you need to keep it dry. Did you use a wet sand and fireclay mixture? How did it work for ya? How easy was it to get your floor level?

Look foward to following your build looks great.

[portland_aaron]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

I didn't take a picture of it earlier, but I did fill every other core of the stand with concrete. I bent the rebar so that I could tie it into both the hearth pour and the cores.

The insulation is 3" thick cal sil board from the local insulation supply place. I think the brand name is Thermo-gold? I was debating between this one and the insblock 19 stuff. I am hopeful that I made a good choice. I suppose time will tell...

I did not really try for the wet sand / fire clay mixture - the bricks are dry placed on there now. I am debating knocking some of the edges down with a diamond grinder before I get too high up the chains. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks
Aaron

[deejayoh]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

I wouldn't grind down the bricks on the floor if you can avoid it, for the same reason you face the "factory" brick edge into your oven instead of a cut face. The "factory" brick face should be flatter and more durable than a ground brick face.

If possible, I would go back and level the floor with sand/fireclay before getting any farther on the dome

[kbartman]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

The insulation is 3" thick cal sil board from the local insulation supply place. I think the brand name is Thermo-gold? I was debating between this one and the insblock 19 stuff. I am hopeful that I made a good choice. I suppose time will tell...

I keep telling my wife that I'm not crazy with this project, but she doesn't quite believe me.

3" inches of insulation sounds like the magic number. My first shipment of insulation was damaged from FB. I considering 4", using the damaged insulation for the bottom layer. I hope FB does'nt ask for it back.

Our better halves think were crazy. Maybe should find our wives a support group for Fornoholics

[portland_aaron]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

Finally got around to making some progress. It's slow going when your other hobbies get in the way...

I made it through 2 courses this weekend. I had made a jig for my saw, similar to those mentioned in Hendo's thread, but I couldn't seem to get it to cut correctly. I am tilting a platform radially until it attains the same angle that the brick will have when it is mounted on the oven. By angling the brick, I can achieve the right bevel to make the circle, but this doesn't seem to do anything for the inverted V. Do I need to be cutting the brick on a side-to-side tilt as well?

Also, I need to look into tapered bricks. I have wedges underneath the bricks in the course, but it uses a ton of mortar! The indispensable tool made for much quicker positioning than the old eyeball method, that's for sure. Also, my wife has made sure to inform me that I don't have a lucrative career as a mason waiting for me.

[deejayoh]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

On the cut - to get rid of the v, yes - you do need to "twist and tilt" the brick. Check out oasisdc's jig. Otherwise, the v just gets worse as you go up.
As for the wedges - Are you using homebrew or refractory mortar? homebrew (3-1-1-1) is much cheaper, and easier to work with. Go with that, don't worry about tapered bricks.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

Nice work so far, good staggers, tight cuts. At what point are you doing your inner arch? I found if the arch bricks are ahead of the course bricks then the tie-in seems to be easier to determine the compound cuts needed to transistion.

[portland_aaron]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

So, I thought I would get ahead of the game and do my entire entry arch. I cut and tapered all the bricks for it last weekend and mortared it in. However, it was ~80F outside, so it may have cured quickly. This weekend, I went to tie a chain into it, and it cracked in half!

There are now a couple of bricks that are locked together, but the rest can be separated! I am hoping that I can scrape the mortar off and reset them?

Any ideas why the mortar didn't seem to bond between the bricks? Does this call into question all the rest of my joints? I am using the standard homebrew, but slightly increasing the amount of fireclay

I swear this project is two steps forward and one step back every weekend...

Thanks for all the help!

[Les]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

I am using the standard homebrew, but slightly increasing the amount of fireclay

AAron.

Stick to the brew, it does work. You might try wetting the bricks and keeping the mix on the wet side. I live in the desert and had no problem. There was one project a while back where I used bag mortar - it seemed to have way too much clay - cracked like hell within 2 hours.

[deejayoh]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

You can knock the mortar off the bricks and reset them. Helps to have a cold chisel. I think all of us have done it once or twice (or ten times in my case)

Why are you adding more fireclay to your homebrew?

[portland_aaron]

Re: 42" in Portland OR

I had gotten the recommendation to use a higher amount of fireclay in order to slow down the shrinkage / cracking of the mortar. If this hasn't been the collective experience of the group, should I go back to 1 part (rather than 1.5 parts) fireclay?

I took the entry arch apart and reset it. Man, that was a pain in the ass. Nothing like spending time to re-do a part that you had already mentally checked off.

Anyway, here's a quick update pic of the progress. I'm certainly not going to win the award for the prettiest or cleanest dome of 2013, but I am hoping it will work just fine.