how clean/pretty should I keep the inside of the oven?

[johnnybrewmeister]

I got the soldiers mortared into place, and *thought* I was keeping things pretty clean on the inside. But, after fully curing/drying my homebrew mortar dries very bright white and is all over the place!. Even where I thought I cleaned things up with a wet sponge, there's still a thin layer of residue that dried & is visible.

Will these "white-washed" spots wear off after firing? Will water & scrub brush clean them off?
I'm ready to do the 2nd course, but figured I should perfect my technique a bit, if it's going to affect how the end result looks.

Thanks,
John.

[Gulf]

That thin haze from portland based mortar will burn off in a firing or two. Try waiting a little longer for the mortar to dry before tooling the face joints. Maybe an hour to an hour and a half. Then shave the excess off with your trowel. The mortar should break up at this point and not stick to other brick surfaces. The wet sponge on too green of mortar is probably what is smearing that haze around. You can wipe the brick down with a damp sponge. Just not immediately after they have been laid.

I hope this helps .

[Tscarborough]

Oddly enough, the best way to keep masonry clean when you lay it up is to not mess with it. Butter up, lay, scrape excess, and leave it alone. Once it gets hard enough to barely take a fingerprint, you can clean up the excess and it will not smear into the pores like it does when you mess with it fresh off the mortar board. Leave it alone!

[johnnybrewmeister]

Thanks for the info. I do hope these will burn off easy enough. I see what you both mean about leave things alone for a bit. Now that I'm smarter, I'll try to do a better job on the 2nd course (and 3rd, and 4th, and...).

[johnnybrewmeister]

'nuther question...
how many of the nooks-n-crannies do we really need to worry about filling with mortar? building a round oven out of rectangular bricks leaves a lot of tight triangular shapes/voids in between bricks. Do these all need to be 100% filled, or will some air-gaps be ok? I was thinking of keeping the inside look as mostly brick as possible, but wondering if I should fill all the gaps from the inside as well?

[DavidApp]

I did go back and use extra mortar to fill any small gaps on the inside as I went.

I am not sure how important that was but it does make the finished oven look better.

David

[johnnybrewmeister]

I did go back and use extra mortar to fill any small gaps on the inside as I went.

I am not sure how important that was but it does make the finished oven look better.

David

Thanks for the info David. This is probably what I should do as well. Leaving more "slop" inside is what I'm most worried about. Perhaps I should troll thru the pictures archive for some close-up interior pics....though to be honest, every since FB re-did their webpages a few weeks back, things are much harder to find, lots of bad links, etc.
maybe it's just me?

[johnnybrewmeister]

Aquaponicsguru had it right (in another thread):
07-21-2015, 05:13 PM

For those that have laid ceramic tile, they know that the best way to clean the mortar (or grout when laying tile) is to use clean sponges and several buckets of clean water after the mortar (grout) sets up a bit. Have the buckets ready and as the water gets dirty rinsing the sponges out, change buckets. You have to do this as you lay the firebricks and you can't let the mortar harden too much as that will make it more difficult to remove. I usually clean them after each chain or when the mortar has set up sufficiently. You also don't want to do it too early either because you will weaken the mortar with excess water before it has a chance to stick the bricks together. I have been doing this as I go and it seems to be working well. However, I'm sure the last few chains will be more difficult as the opening gets smaller. I'm on my sixth chain now. I'm sure when I close the dome, there will be some cleanup at the top but hopefully not too much. The key is to keep your sponges as clean as possible so very little mortar residue, if any, is left on the brick surfaces.

Last edited by Aquaponicsguru; 07-21-2015, 05:16 PM.

I hadn't done tile work in 22 yrs, so I forgot. But applying this technique, and remembering what I did 22 yrs. ago - it works!
Now I'm not worried about "slop" inside, and it is easy to clean up each row as I go. Too bad I've already done 3 courses before I re-remembered this....still working on cleaning up the first 3 courses.

John.

[DavidApp]

Hello John

I used diluted Muriatic acid to clean up my brickwork.
Be very careful as the fumes are bad.The clean up I had to do was mainly in the vent area so I was not working with my head in the oven.

Wear heavy rubber gloves as well.

David