Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

[wotavidone]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Thank you wotavidone for the clarifications. I have been hearing about homebrew and thinking that it is the same mix you pointed to (portland cement, lime, fireclay, sand), but I can understand from you that it is not? What is homebrew then? and what is the minimum thickness I can have for my cast oven?
Cheers.

Homebrew is the sand cement lime and clay. It is just that it isn't refractory in the sense that a refractory is formulated to perform at temperatures exceeding 1000C.
Thickness is a trade between thermal mass v quick heat-up. I dunno. If I was making one from homebrew I guess I'd try 3 to 4 inches, maybe, because I think the homebrew is less dense than a commercial castable.

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Hi all,
Here is my final plan:
I would just remind that I had two choices; brick and steel, and that I wanted a fast heat up time.
1- The idea of doing all the cooking inside a BRICK oven was excluded because of the lack of a proof for its vitality (see my previous LONG boring post on this thread if interested).
2- I was lucky to find a thicker (2 mm thick)“flat dome” (A “flat dome” is a steel flat dome used for making large tortilla bread as mentioned in the second post herein). This is the thickest one I could find. I will definitely use it in my build. Thus, I will use STEEL in my build. I will use a 2 mm thick steel for the rest of the build.
3- I have not decided yet how some thermal mass will be added; lining the steel build with bricks or cladding it. That will be decided when I have the steel build made.
I decided to build a cardboard model before cutting the steel just to make sure that my design can be applied in practice, and I got good results. The model is combined of 6 pieces: the hearth, the dome, three pieces integrating into the side walls, and a small piece over the door to ensure that the golden ratio of the door height is achieved.
Here is an explanation of the cardboard model build:
Two cardboard discs over one another; The lower (bigger) one resembles the hearth, and the upper (smaller) one resembles the flat dome:

The side walls are made up of an angle sector (see my second post) That can be further divided into identical smaller angle sectors for convenience. I choose three identical ones:

Building the card board model:

side area integrated:

dome installed:

model finished (the golden ration piece is added:

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

The machine prevents uploading more than 6 pics/post.
Here is the small piece achieving the golden ratio. It is just part of the angle sector but cut underneath to form the oven opening:

Here is the thick flat dome. It is used in restaurants and can withstand high temperatures and I was told that it may out-date my lifetime :

[Greenman]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Looks like you have given this some thought and are on a roll. This promises to be interesting. All the best with your build.

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Thanks Steve for your encouragement.

[stonecutter]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

However, it was one of my dreams to have one in my kitchen, but it was built by an idiot so I decided to rebuild it after having been reviewing the forum for months.

I missed this when it was originally posted, and I almost sprayed coffee on my tablet through my nose! Thanks for the laugh..

[stonecutter]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

If it was mine I would use a castable refractory or the component mix( ie:homebrew..shutter ) over the steel....but not without reinforcement, because it will get a lot of cracking. I'd put 3" with a layer of wire reinforcement or use SS refractory fiber.

IMO it's superior to layering brick over the steel because you will have full contact, and no space between the steel and brick....which makes castable material more efficient because there is no air space between the mass and the steel.

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Thanks stonecutter. Your opinion does make sense. Cladding with refractory or homebrew is more thermally stable than layering bricks, but I am a little bit curious about heat up time, so I need to minimize the thickness as much as possible. I just want the thermal mass in order to improve the thermal stability of the oven, I don't need any retained heat cooking, so I have't decided yet how thick will the cladding be or if I can go with no cladding (??) which would sound a little bit mad!
BTW Why did my post cause you that sudden laugh?

[stonecutter]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

You need enough mass to make the cladding structurally viable. I would not go any thinner than 2" with reinforced cladding...but that's just a suggestion.

Re: the laugh.....when you said some idiot built the oven.

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Thanks stonecutter for the clarification. Yes he is; he did not put any insulation for the hearth to mention one of his terrible mistakes. Glad it made you laugh

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

How to determine the side pieces integrating into the walls:
__________________________________________________ ___________________________

Sorry folks for involving too math. I did not find a more simple way to go with my build. However this math?s primitive and I have prepared the number crunching tools already. Just substitute for your desired dimensions and you will get the build.
Just to remind that the side area is a part of an angle sector that will be divided into smaller identical pieces for convenience. The side area will be composed of one over the door to guarantee that the golden ratio is achieved (the piece (A) in the photos below) and another piece representing the rest of the side area, the second piece will not be cut like the first which is cut to form the door, and this second piece will be further divided into 3 identical pieces (3 of the piece (B) in the photos) for ease of forming and cutting. Thus the side area is composed of one (A) and three (B)s.
Provided the door width is (w), the hearth diameter is (r2), and the angle facing the door width (Q) we get:
sin (Q/2) = w / r2
(Q) has become known.
To know how much of the hearth circumference did the sector of (Q) take (which is the length of the circular curve facing (Q) ) and it is of course part of the hearth circumference and I will name it (cr)):
cr = Q * ( r2 / 2) : (Q) in radians
We apply the same equation above to know the angle of the ((MAIN circular section producing the entire side walls)) which determines the section resembling the door (piece (A)) by replacing ( r2 / 2) with (r+L). I?ll name it door angle (da). You know, cr is mutual between the two angle sectors the one in the drawing here and that in my second post. Refer to my second post to know what do r and L resemble.
cr = da * (r+L)
(da) has become known.
(da) produces piece (A)
The rest of the angle is ( g ? da) which will be divided into 3 to produce the (B)s:
ra = (g-da) / 3
This along with r+l will produce one (B) that will be copied twice to get the entire side area.
Refer to my 2nd post for more information.
Please folks tell me about any mistake you find.
Here are the photos.. You can see how determining (B) overstretched the paper so I used the kitchen floor and a chalk to capture it. That is why I divide into pieces; if it was one piece It would be hard to determine.
The door wrt the hearth:

(A):

(B):

Detemining (B):

(B) determined:

[Greenman]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Hey V - If I had been presented with that I would never have started! I expect that your maths is right and good. i hope it works for you. I just did it and it works if you figure it as you go along.

I think my head hurts!

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Keep encouraging me Steve. All my family are challenging the project altogether. Actually I needed such an encouragement. Thank you lots, and sorry for causing you some headache

[Greenman]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

When the first food comes out of your forno your family will wonder why they ever doubted that it is a very worthy thing to do and chastise you for not doing it sooner!

My head is fine now, really.

[v12spirit]

Re: Brick oven reconstructed to a steel one

Hi people.
Today I?m very happy. After some discussions with david s and clobberdave about some insulation alternatives, and after some turn offs resulting from the lack of the insulation they suggested, I madly started a desperate search for ceramic blankets, And to my surprise, I finally found one in Damascus!! and asked someone to deliver it to me. It has surprisingly survived being destroyed on the way to here about 60 miles from Damascus. I?m so lucky. I did not expect that I will eventually have one for my oven. However it is too large for my oven so I will use it for constructing my second outdoor oven. It is about 4 cubic meters and it comes in a one roll that costs about 80 $. That is expensive to me because the dollar was magnified by 3.2 in my country the last two years.
Here is the white clad bride waiting to hug the lucky oman (I mean ?oven?). He?s too late isn?t he?