OK...getting started

[edonovan]

Alright everyone... I am getting started on an ambitious outdoor kitchen project and am trying to get my WFO base in place and set before moving on with steel studs and the rest of the "kitchen". I dry stacked my cinder blocks yesterday to get a visual and this is what I have ended up with. I am doing a corner build and have a few questions.

1. Going for a 42" oven, is this about the size of a base that I will need? (measurements in FB says 65" x 78) is that minimum?
2. With a corner build, do I still need the angle iron across the span (opening) not seeing how I would do that... I was think of going for a rounded front like Ken524. Can I just do re-bar in the overhang and be good?
3. Lastly, when filling every other core, do I need to drill in my vertical re-bar to my slab (would rather not) or just place in concrete? I am no structural engineer, but I am guessing that is just to re-enforce any horizontal movement?

Thank you for all the help and guidance. (I am sure their will be more, many more questions)

[JRPizza]

The FB plans are not much help for corner builds. You should do a search for corner builds and find ones that built @ 42", then see how they built their bases. I built a 39" and I found several builds (that I bookmarked) and studied how big their bases were. It also looks like you did not lay out a symmetrical base - not sure what you were trying to get.
I don't think you need any angle iron - you can just reinforce with rebar. If you look at my build you can see what I had copied from others.
I also did not tie my rebar through the base cores into my slab - not sure that is necessary. Also if you read my thread you can see where I am a proponent of using a cad program to help position your oven on the slab, and it would also help try to align your chimney between supports on your roof. I believe I have some cad files for 42" ovens I helped some other folks with - if you are interested I could see what I have and share with you.

[edonovan]

Thanks, I will be looking at a bunch of corner builds to see which direction to go. LOL, yeah you noticed that non-symmetrical-ness (is that even a word)...I just ran with what was in the plans and said to myself "this looks kinda funny" I had just moved around 3 yards of dirt earlier and was done for the day. Like I said, just trying to get this base set up (the right size for 42"), base poured, and then the WFO takes a back burner to the rest of the kitchen. I have never used a CAD program, but will absolutely take any help with positioning. Thanks again.

[Mongo]

Are you in earthquake country? If so you may want to consider tieing into the slab. Have a look at my base - southern California. I agree with JR on the angle iron. Just go with lots of iron in your concrete. I built a 23 inch overhang and went overboard on the rebar. Even put a few pieces of angle iron IN the counter/base.

https://community.fornobravo.com/for...mente-ca-build

[JRPizza]

Here is a good thread on sizing for a 42" corner
https://community.fornobravo.com/for...dimension-help

[Gulf]

....I have never used a CAD program, but will absolutely take any help with positioning.....

You are doing it right by researching as many of the corner builds on this site that you can. JR can tell you that I have no experiece with CAD programs lol. But, I do a little pencil and paper drafting. However, on complicated smaller projects, I have often found it best to go full scale. You may want to consider doing that. You can get some cardboad from an office supply store or just tape some box panels together to make a canvas large enough to work with. Find the dead center and use a wooden yard stick to draw out the ID of your oven. A trick that I have used is to drill a very small hole on the 1" mark for a pivot point.Pin that at the center. For a 42" oven, the radius would be 21" so, you would need to drill another small hole at the 22" mark to compensate for the 1" pivot point. Scribe that circle and subsequent circles to represent the OD of your oven's brick dome, and the thickness of your insulation layer(s). Now find the correct placement of your oven's inner arch. Look at JRPizza 's build. He's already on board. Now, lay out and draw the foot print of your flue gallery (outer arch) including any face brick or finish that you intend to install. You may have to tape some more cardboard to the front of the canvas to compete that task. Once you have that all down, you can cut the oven's foot print down to shape. This can be used to position the oven fore and aft on a marked out section section of concrete that represents your oven's stand. Allow for steel framing if you are doing a "doggie style". Then make adjustments for your oven's stand if needed.

This is kind of bassackwards of the way most have done. But, it is best to take all of this into consideration before the stand and dome are built. After that, most of us are just compensating for what we wished that we had done different .

[edonovan]

Thanks everyone...Mongo - no not in Earthquake area....South Georgia, right above the FL/GA line. Thank you JRPizza and Gulf...I like the pencil and paper/cardboard idea, but am still willing to take a stab at looking at CAD and see if it makes sense to me. So far I am seeing a lot of 72 x 72 (i think true is 70 x 70) for corner builds...so I will be laying that out and penciling it out a bit this weekend. Learning how to use this Forum and will start a build thread soon. Again, appreciate the guidance and assistance.

[JRPizza]

CAD is great in that you can do some simple 2D top and side views that will help not only with placement of your dome on your slab but also with inner arch placement and location of your chimney penetration through your roof. Since building an oven it truly a "set in stone" operation I also did a full sized layout on cardboard to verify what I was seeing in my model - sort of "measure twice cut once". Check out the thread I linked you to and let me know if you need any help with the files.

[deejayoh]

Sketchup is a great (free) 3-D modeling tool. I used it to design the layout of my backyard kitchen. I didn't go so far as to use it to model the dome. That seemed like overkill