New 40" build in Greenville, SC

[Petter]

Ahh, sorry. I forgot.

[Petter]

It looks like this:

[Petter]

Welcome, Since the sides started to lean outwards, there is a great risk that the bottom mortar joint has failed. So it's better to re-do it. Sorry, I live in Sweden and have no idéa if they are sold there. It may be called glass fiber rope. It is used to seal stove doors for example. try to get some 3/8-1/2" thick.

[foxten]

It is common to use ceramic rope for sealing due to that reason.

Thank you. I'll buy some. Can you find that at Lowes/Home Depot? Or do I need to get it online?

[Petter]

It is common to use ceramic rope for sealing due to that reason.

[foxten]

(Sorry for you) I would: If it is still fresh, clean the bricks and re-do the arc and sides. Skip mortaring it to the dome. Leave 5-10 mm expansion gap for the dome and gallery to move independently if eachother.

Even if it might work anyway, it is worth it for the good night sleep.

If I leave a gap there, then does that allow smoke to enter the doghouse portion or will 100% of the smoke go through the vent built into the outer arch?

[Petter]

(Sorry for you) I would: If it is still fresh, clean the bricks and re-do the arc and sides. Skip mortaring it to the dome. Leave 5-10 mm expansion gap for the dome and gallery to move independently if eachother.

Even if it might work anyway, it is worth it for the good night sleep.

[foxten]

Are there any cracks in the mortar or do the sides only lean out?

Only where the outer arch joins the inner arch. Any ideas for buttressing the outer arch? Is it necessary? The only additional load on the outer arch will be my duravent vent stack that will be about 12 feet above the top of the fireplace and the masonry required to make a flat surface for the vent stack anchor plate.

[Petter]

Are there any cracks in the mortar or do the sides only lean out?

[foxten]

OK. New problem. Again, I'm an idiot. I tried to squeeze the final arch block in with my dead blow hammer and this happened. It pushed the arch support bricks out which looks like it bent my arch out. My ego will recover. My entire dome/oven will be enclosed in a "doghouse", so my question is how do I reinforce the arch supports so it holds with no issue? Or do I need to start from scratch here?

[foxten]

Here is something that took me a while to realize: About IT and pencil:

no matter at what weird angle you fix a pencil to your IT, ... as long as it is fixed, it will make circles with the pivot as center. So while tracing the inner dome cut lines on dry-stacked arch bricks, I would just hand-hold a pencil to my it, and regularly change position for easier drawing. I just had to check inner dome radius based on some reference points.

This is exactly where I landed. I took some photos to illustrate the process I'll post in it's own thread in the future.

[Kvanbael]

Here is something that took me a while to realize: About IT and pencil:

no matter at what weird angle you fix a pencil to your IT, ... as long as it is fixed, it will make circles with the pivot as center. So while tracing the inner dome cut lines on dry-stacked arch bricks, I would just hand-hold a pencil to my it, and regularly change position for easier drawing. I just had to check inner dome radius based on some reference points.

[foxten]

OK, deep breath....
Look at the first pic attached. The face of my IT bracket that the rod attaches to describes/defines the inner surface of the dome as it rotates around and pivots up and down. I placed the IT next to my TDC brick, laid a pencil so the lead was essentially at the same distance from the center as the back face of the bracket, and drew the line representing the inner surface by moving the IT up and down. No need to attach the pencil, just a little freehand. Then with a brick in the IT I eyeballed where the brick that will sit on top of the TDC brick would be, and drew a line not along the brick but starting at the ID and down a little to the right so I would have room to bed mortar when that brick is placed (make sense?). I then cut all my arch bricks with the same basic top angle once I figured out how long they needed to be. In the second picture you can see how I made the difficult cuts in the dome bricks as they mated up with the arch. As I approached the arch I cut the dome brick with the odd angle I needed to mate with the arch and used mortar as my friend, but first I sort of "transferred" the ID distance from that adjacent brick to the arch brick. All the cuts to the arch bricks were 90 degrees and I figured the slight ID mismatch was immaterial.
I hope this sort of helps and didn't confuse you more. Also others might have come up with more elegant ways to integrate the arch but you have to go with what makes sense to you and what you feel you can build. My method works if you build the arch as you build the dome - I don't know how anybody visualizes building the arch first but I think they probably just cut the dome bricks to match whatever they end up with.

I understand perfectly the part about marking the arc of the inner dome on the TDC brick. What I don't understand is how do you decide at what height to mark the top of that cut. Or what would be the bottom for the next brick above that. When you're forming the arc, you've got at least a couple of inches of up and down travel and I don't know when to make that mark.

Thanks for the responses!

[UtahBeehiver]

Here is pic from Mr. Chipster on a tapered inner arch similar to yours.

[JRPizza]

OK, deep breath....
Look at the first pic attached. The face of my IT bracket that the rod attaches to describes/defines the inner surface of the dome as it rotates around and pivots up and down. I placed the IT next to my TDC brick, laid a pencil so the lead was essentially at the same distance from the center as the back face of the bracket, and drew the line representing the inner surface by moving the IT up and down. No need to attach the pencil, just a little freehand. Then with a brick in the IT I eyeballed where the brick that will sit on top of the TDC brick would be, and drew a line not along the brick but starting at the ID and down a little to the right so I would have room to bed mortar when that brick is placed (make sense?). I then cut all my arch bricks with the same basic top angle once I figured out how long they needed to be. In the second picture you can see how I made the difficult cuts in the dome bricks as they mated up with the arch. As I approached the arch I cut the dome brick with the odd angle I needed to mate with the arch and used mortar as my friend, but first I sort of "transferred" the ID distance from that adjacent brick to the arch brick. All the cuts to the arch bricks were 90 degrees and I figured the slight ID mismatch was immaterial.
I hope this sort of helps and didn't confuse you more. Also others might have come up with more elegant ways to integrate the arch but you have to go with what makes sense to you and what you feel you can build. My method works if you build the arch as you build the dome - I don't know how anybody visualizes building the arch first but I think they probably just cut the dome bricks to match whatever they end up with.