Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

[Frances]

And here it is!

Whew, those stones were HEAVY. I've thought out how I'm going to pour the hearth on such an uneven edge. Now all I need to do is decide how to do the doorway...

Either I'll pour a cement doorframe and cover it with tiles later on. Or I'll get hold of some bricks and try fitting an arch in (and fill in the corners with cement and cover them up with something later on). Or I could leave it as it is and have a large doorway, making it easier to get the wood in and out - I thought I could stack the wood further in then to prevent it getting rained on.

Or has anyone got any other bright ideas?

[Carl]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Looks great - love the look of these stones. What's your trick for pouring the hearth on the uneven walls? I'll be facing exactly the same problem with mine when I'm finished building the support walls - mine will be even more uneven than yours!

[pizzaboy]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

I like the rock stand. I assume that you will take it down and mortar the stone together?

[Frances]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Thank you, I rather like the stones too. Unfortunatly they were not quite free of charge. But hey, you don't build a pizza oven every day.

Actually, I was more sort of planning to not mortar the stones together. Each stone weighs more than 30 kg and it all fits together like a jigsaw (at least that's the idea) so I'm hoping it'll take the weight of the oven as it is. Good? Or not?

Pouring the hearth, hum, well more of an idea than a trick, I'll see if it works when I get there: I thought I'd set the surrounding boards on the edges of the stones, sawing them to shape so they fit, then shape the central plywood piece so it fits where the top of the wall is lowest. The higher bits of the wall will be inside the the thickness of the hearth - this is also the part where I try to make sure the top is level. Does that make sense? Anyway, I'll be sure to take pictures.

I really like your walls, Carl!

[Gareth]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

I would advise against continuing without mortar. Water and ice can cause shift and over time you may loose your foundation. You have done a nice job so far, I would hate to seet it fail.

Gareth

[JoeT62]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Of course, here in New England we have plenty of stone walls that have stood for hundreds of years without mortar.

Then again, they weren't holding up a brick oven.

I love the look of the stones - nice work! As for a door, I think I would go without. I've always liked the look of stacked firewood on the bottom of these ovens.

[asudavew]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Maybe you could just coat the inside to help hold it together.

As for pouring the hearth. It's possible you could pour a smaller leveling layer of mortar or cement using just some 1x2's. That is what I am going to do for mine.
Then I will build the forms for the hearth.

[Unofornaio]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Frances- looks good.

If you would like to loose the straight cut on the stones at the opening let me know and I will tell you how to "face" the cut edge. I would not make the opening any smaller that it is getting wood out is always a pain and the bigger the opening the better. Besides it looks nice the way it is....Well maybe some brick that match the enclosure in front of the Stone??

Hold on..they are not mortared? I'm gonna have to think about this one. That retaining wall looks like its been there for ages and looks to be in good shape so your soil in that area. So they are just dry stacked?

[christo]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Looks nice! I'm no authority - but I read alot - and watch DIY shows on TV. It seems like you some of your joints are close to being in line. When aligned, the wall can fail where joints align. I imagine the effect is worse with unmoratared joints.

I'm not sure if it is a good application, but lining the inside with surface bonding cement may fill in joints and solidify the base.

Christo

[Frances]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Thanks everyone!
The stones are dry stacked and the jonts are staggered as much as I could, considering that they were all nearly the same length... the surfaces on the other hand are pretty irregular and it was a devil to get them to fit without any wobble. Mortaring everything on the inside sounds like a good compromise to me, I think I'll go for that. (That is, unless somebody convinces me that its a really really really bad idea in the meantime)

Unofornaio, it would be great if you could tell me how to face the ends of the stones, I'd really appreciate that.

[asudavew]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

So did you decide to at least coat the inside?

[Frances]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Still thinking...

I'll definitely at least coat the inside. I'm sort of gently sidling up to the idea that maybe I will number all the stones and take them all down again (groan!!) and put them all back together again (AAAHHHRGNOOoo).

And I thought building the oven dome would be difficult!

[Unofornaio]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Frances

Well since you are already on the fence let me push you a bit..

Ive thought about this and if you are adamant about not doing it over again the dry stacking is probably going to be OK but not as it is. What I think you should do is grout the joints inside and out with a bag. If you do not want them to show you can either strike them back far enough or you can use white cement and add a bit of grey to adjust the color to as close as you can get to the stones.
Coating the inside is not going to do much for you, what you need is to stabilize those stones in-between and more importantly protect them from water getting in during the winter for freeze and thaw. Dry stacked stone walls are OK in direct contact with the elements because they are not supporting anything or something that will not be as devastated by movement cracks such as the oven will. If you really do not want to see ANY mortar (in the joints) then you MUST rebuild it and set each stone on a bed of mortar in the center. Its not that big a deal and will actually speed up the process from the first time. Just put a nice bed of mortar in the center of the stone beneath and place the stone. The mortar should be kinda stiff, NOT DRY. Besides in order to get a good face with the chisel method you need to have access to all sides of the cut. By the way what kind of stone are those.?

[Archena]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

Suggestion: if you're going to number the stones then take them down you might want to set each course in a different pile. That way when you need number A4 you don't have to move B6, D11 and C5 to get at it.

It's really great looking stone, by the way.

[Frances]

Re: Hooray, Iinished the walls of my stand!

They're limestone blocks from the Jura (those are our local hills). We've allready got a wall in our garden made up of these and I thought it would look good to use the same stone on the oven.

This bag method whereof you speak... would that give them the stability they need? I wouldn't mind the mortar showing and that sounds quite fun to do (sort of like icing a cake, yeah?)