West Virginia Casa90 Build

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Added a second coat of stucco to the oven this morning. Here's a couple of pictures showing one area before and the same one after. Will be checking out a final finish product next, kgator, thanks for the comments. Once this coat dries, will get a close look to see if I think it needs a skim coat or something but so far, I think I'm happy with the shape and finish- a few dips and bumps but hey, it's home made!

[kkgator]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Dave,

Looks good so far! It appears the end is in sight. I should be starting my oven soon and I'm grateful for your pictures and posts. I sent you a PM in regards to your stucco question. It seems that DRYVIT is the way to go and a lot of home builders use it down here in the swamp. I am actually concerned about the moisture/rain down here as well. Sherwin Williams makes this product (Loxon XP Masonry Coating) and it is a 1 coat system with no need for priming. I wonder if anyone on the boards has used any of these products and could offer some guidance.

Keep up the good work!

Kenny

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build, First Stucco Coat

Here are a couple of pictures of the first coat of stucco over the fiber blanket and hardware cloth. Think the mixture was okay but one batch was a bit wet. I used a mix of 1 part portland, 1 part lime, and 5 parts sand for this coat. Will post a new thread with some questions on how long to wait before putting on the second coat.

First picture is mixer and materials ready to go.



Next shot is when I was almost done- should have stopped to take a picture or two along the way but forgot.



I have fired the oven with small fires 3 times so far and no issues to report with the oven itself, hopefully any cracks in the stucco will be small. There were a couple of places where the coating was a bit thick when the hardware cloth shell stuck out from the blanket a bit but hopefully it will cure in one solid piece.

Thanks for looking

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build, Fiber Blanket Installed

Covered the oven with 3 layers of the FB fiber blanket this morning, then used 1/2" hardware cloth to form the dome shape. It looks pretty rough but it's a rustic oven, right?

Here are a few pictures as I progressed.







First coat of stucco came next, pictures in the next post.

[mrchipster]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Fires can be difficult in a damp oven so do not be frustrated yet.

Since my oven is fully seasoned I take two pieces of wrist diameter wood placed parallel about 6-8 inches apart, fill the space with crumpled newspaper, place kindling 3-4 across and then 3-4 more in parallel.

Then I light the paper, starts every time.

Once the fire is burning I push the pile to the middle of the oven and add more wood. Sometimes it is easier to push it back if I use a medium sized piece of wood that spans the two larger pieces using it to push everything at once.

You may want to do your curing with charcoal, kingsford works well because it has those little fire enhancers in it.

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build. First Fire

Received the 24" section of chimney I ordered so was able to add the chimney to my build. I have 6' of chimney pipe and this gets the chimney about 24" above the roof of the pavilion. Not sure why I originally thought I would need two 48" pieces of pipe but got it right this time. I've posted an ad for the extra 48" duratech duravent pipe in the For Sale forum since I won't need it. As FYI, I ordered the pipe from buildit.com on Wednesday and it arrived here on Friday with free shipping- hard to beat.

Here's a picture of the chimney after install. I have one bracket securing the pipe to the facia of the pavilion.



Since I had the chimney in place, decided to light a small fire, burned for a few hours, only a few small pieces of wood. Outside of the oven was about 160 degrees, inside about 220 or so measured with an infrared thermometer. Let it all cool down and then covered the oven with a tarp.

Will have to research the process of starting a fire, thinking the easiest way will be to light some kindling near the entrance under the flue, then push it back in to the oven after it gets burning. My wood might have been a bit damp but had a bit of a time getting it to light off when it was further in the oven. I was happy with the small amount of smoke that escaped out the front once the fire was burning. I'm assuming that with a larger fire, the flue will draw even better.

I'm going to do another small fire before I start adding the insulating blankets to at least make sure that I don't get any obvious cracks that would be easy to fix while the oven is uncovered. We've had a lot of rain here and the humidity is in the 70-80% range so really damp. I'm waiting for a clear and dry forecast for a couple of days before I try the first coat of stucco.

Here's a picture of the first fire. Almost cooked a smore for my wife but decided to wait, lol.

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Added the decorative arch to the front of the oven yesterday. I have confirmed that I'm not a mason and that buying a modular oven was the right approach. Haven't checked this morning to see if the arch is still there or if it will still be attached once the form is removed. I'm going to try to add a bit of mortar in to some of the joints to make them look a bit more consistent if it stays in place. Here's a picture, there won't be any close ups, lol!

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

It only took about 30 minutes or so to apply the mortar and I didn't notice that it was trying to set or get hard to work with. Part of the reason I only mixed half the bag was because I was unsure how long I would have to work with it but that made up a pretty good size batch to use anyway.

More when there is progress.

[kkgator]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

I wish that my project was at the stage that you are at! Thanks for the mortar shots! From what I read, the FB mortar sets up fairly fast. Did you have any issues when you applied your mortar or is there anything else that you would have done differently?

I'm waiting for my trailer to be finished before I start my oven build and the rain around here isn't helping either. July rainfall for Gainesville, FL 2012 just over 6" and this year we finished just over 20".

Thanks for posting!
Kenny

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Here are a couple more pictures. This one shows the oven as it sits from behind the fireplace.



I played around a bit using some of the left over blocks from making the fireplace and stand to see how they would look as a decorative arch for the oven. My block cutting skills are not impressive but I like the look. More importantly, my wife thought it looked good. I'm hoping that as I stabilize and even out the gaps in the bricks with mortar, it will work out.



I have a 3" thick paver that is like what was used for the top of the stand that I can put in front of the oven for a landing area- this would be about 1" lower than the oven floor and not sure if that would be a problem or not. Might find a 1" thick piece of green granite that I could place there to bring the floor and landing area to the same height.

For those of you with ovens, do you think it would be a big issue to have the landing area lower (by 1") than the oven floor?

I also have about 1/2 of the bag of refractory mortar left, is there any reason I can't use this to mount the decorative arch, not in the heat path really but I have it on hand?

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I didn't find stucco mix locally but think I'm going to just mix it up from the basic ingredients. Found a stucco recipe in another post using 1 part portland, 1 part lime, 5-6 parts sand for the base coat and then 1 part portland, 2 parts lime, and 4-5 parts of fine sand for the finish coat. I have a small cement mixer so this seems easy enough.

Next steps are to set the arch and then put on two layers of fiber blanket. I picked up a roll of hardware cloth that I'll use to try to form the dome and as the base for the first stucco coat. Interesting project so far, can wait to start curing in a week or two!

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build, Oven Sealed

Used the FB Refractory mortar to seal the 3 pieces of the oven together. Instructions call for about a 3" wide band of mortar about 3/4" thick- doesn't seem like a lot but think I'm close to the correct thickness. You also use mortar to seal around the base of the oven covering the fiber board. Here are some pictures as I went along- I've never used mortar before so was pretty slow- good news is this will be covered by blankets and stucco.

This is before I started.



This one shows the oven after I trimmed the fiber board around the bottom of the oven.



This picture shows progress on applying the mortar, note the professional tools, lol.



One more showing the top of the oven as I've applied the mortar. You can also see that I mounted the ring for the chimney. I originally was going to run the chimney through the roof of the pavilion but later was able to set the oven just outside the footprint. The double wall chimney pipe is way overkill but it's what I have and too expensive to ship to return so will go with it. There will be 8' of chimney on the oven.

[IMG][/IMG]

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

Thanks for the kind words kkgator. I think an engine lift would probably work, I was thinking about renting one of those when I realized I could get to the stand if I drove the tractor behind the fireplace. I think that two strong people could probably lift the pieces as well but we're kind of in the boonies here and didn't have anyone available to help. My wife is willing but isn't able to lift a lot of weight so really happy the tractor worked out.

Thanks to everyone else for the kind words and encouragement too- we've had rain most every day lately but hoping to at least seal the 3 dome pieces together with the FB mortar tomorrow so. I also took a trip to Lowes today (about an hour away) to get some stucco but turns out they don't stock it there anymore even though their website indicated they did- will have to look for another supplier, most likely a concrete supply company early next week.

More pictures when I make some progress!

[kkgator]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

I appreciate the fact that you took pictures. I recently purchased a composite oven to put on a trailer. Seeing your oven in stage s has helped me tremendously. I also thought that I would probably need an engine lift to lift the pieces onto the trailer. Keep the pictures coming! I absolutely love what you're doing!

[mrchipster]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

I am even more-impressed the further you go into this project, absolutely beautiful and well thought out.

[davemartin88]

Re: West Virginia Casa90 Build

My fault for terminology, it's actually fiber board and got roughed up a bit as we positioned the 3 oven pieces. Sorry to mislead!