Montana Pompeii

[Kinsman]

Howdy all:

First off, thanks to James for maintaining this site. And also thanks to all the folks here who shared their stories. What a great wealth of information here.

I will begin construction of my Pompeii oven here in Western Montana as soon as the ground thaws a bit. I will be building on a floating slab and will use natural stone to build the base. I am thinking something on the lines of a 40-48" oven. I will use it for pizzas and breads, and also barbecue, maybe, at least for a while.

I will post plenty of pics along the way as soon as I figure out how to do that.
Nothing in the 'sticky' about how to do it. Do photos have to be externally hosted, or can I copy them into here? Help appreciated.

Anyhow, I will no doubt be asking plenty of questions.
Feel free to question, comment, or whatever....

Anybody here ever work with stone structures?

[DavidK]

Welcome Kinsman! Sounds like quite an undertaking. I'm no stonemason but I'm sure there is someone here that can help. As for the pics, I use photobucket as do many others, but simply, yes, you need an outside host for your pics. Then you can attach the img text using the "insert image" icon on the post/reply page. Good luck and good pizza!

[Marcel]

Posting images without an outside host

Welcome Kinsman! Sounds like quite an undertaking. I'm no stonemason but I'm sure there is someone here that can help. As for the pics, I use photobucket as do many others, but simply, yes, you need an outside host for your pics. Then you can attach the img text using the "insert image" icon on the post/reply page. Good luck and good pizza!

(M) There is also a way to post small images here as thumbnails without using an outside host. I'll try to demonstrate:

(M) Let's say that my image is one I have on my hard drive. I go below to "Manage Attachments". I then follow the links to

Upload File Use the 'Browse' button to find the file you want to attach, then click 'Upload' to add it to this post. Valid file extensions: bmp doc gif jpe jpeg jpg pdf png psd txt zip File to Upload:
Current Attachments [img]images/attach/jpg.gif[/img] CAD herringbone floor.jpg (81.7 KB) Space Used: 81.7 KB

(M) Because my file is less than 90 KB (very small) I should be able to upload it below. Let's see if this works:

[img]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/MARCEL/LOCALS%7E1/TEMP/moz-screenshot-123.jpg[/img]

(M) Well, I may have done something wrong. I also use PhotoBucket but the thumbnails you see are posted, I believe, without an outside host.

Ciao,

Marcel

[james]

Old world meets new world

Kinsman,

It's great seeing an oven go into Montana -- ancient Rome comes to the American big sky country. Old meets new. Enjoy.

This is a link to an oven that used a concrete block base, covered wtih stone, and a free-standing stone upper enclosure. It looks great, and shows the stonework.

http://fornobravo.com/pizza_oven_pho...s/Dallas1.html

This link isn't a stone oven (of course), but also shows excellent, discrete freestanding masonry work.

http://fornobravo.com/pizza_oven_pho...ouisiana1.html

We await your photos. :-)
James

[DavidK]

Always learning

Hey Marcel, thanks for the instruction. I knew there was a way to do that, I just never scrolled down on the reply screen to find the manage attachments box...

Kinsman, that's why he's a "senior member" and I'm not...

You rock Marcel!

[Kinsman]

Well,
I was hoping to do some more..."quarrying" (picking up rocks) this weekend but the weather is looking pretty nasty: predicted 24 below tonight, before wind chill.

Going to have to wait a few days. No point in knocking myself out, prying frozen rocks out of frozen ground with my frozen fingers.....I am excited to get things going though...

Question: I know I want to insulate the whole thing well; do I need a thermal layer under my hearth? I was thinking of perlite maybe 3" thick. Do I want to use some sort of refractory layer between that and the actual hearth, or are firebricks enough? I would like the max heat retention I can get.