Steel Dome Oven

[BCiliberto]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Good Stuff Wiley!

Thank you-- I'll post some pics when i get going-- going to build it into an older Ford 150-- supposed to come in this week.

Just in from cooking up 2 stromboli's and 7 pizzas-- just delicious, nothing like fresh bread!! Ran one to my mom, wife, son and I kncoked off the rest. I dough a real thin crust from a 4 oz. dough ball. About a 10 " pizza.

I'm hoping to do some fundraisers at events, serving up small pizzas for donations to the cause of the day (anything but political ) !

I'm hoping to have it completed by the end of the year-- your idea about the steel dome and wheel really puts me at ease about trucking down the road. Being an old mason, the thought of bouncing bricks or a fragile cast shell around made me cringe.


Thanks again and enjoy your baking!

Ben

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

BCiliberto,
Thank you for the kind words :-)
On the whole I have been pleased with my WFO. I have not done as much baking as I expected but that has been due to other circumstances that have placed demands upon my time rather than any fault in the oven. I have still to make a "overnight" insulated door for heat retention, again that is due to time contraints. Heat up is quite quick, I am able to reach pizza temps in about forty to fifty minutes of burn and that is not trying to create some sort of fire storm in the oven. I have developed a routine which allows me to build and bake a pizza, I then rake the coals over the open area and throw on a few small pieces of wood. I can then sit and enjoy the pizza with my company and enjoy the spectacle of the flames and fire thru the windows of our solarium indoor eating area. A second pizza and all subsequent pizzas follow the routine of raking off the coals, giving the hearth a quick sweep and placing the just built pizza, baking and then raking the coals over the hearth and adding a few sticks of wood. Using this technique I have enjoyed as many as five pizzas with my wife and another couple without significant hearth temp drop or extension of cooking time over a period of 2 hours. I imagine many WFO owners have a similar routine for cooking in "off season" (late fall, winter and spring) when one doesn't eat outside.

Regarding alterations of design, I would increase the size of the transition area where the chimney joins the entrance; at present I have a six inch chimney which has just over 28 square inches of area in cross section, the transition opening is 27 square inches (that's the rectangular hole in the wheel). I would increase that 27 sq inches to something larger and perhaps increase to an 8 inch chimney as there are times during initial fireup that there is more smoke created than the chimney can handle and so it escapes out the front.

This is my first WFO and so I have little emperical experience other than this oven. I have seen pictures of ovens which from the soot staining have similar problems yet have larger chimney and transition areas. SO I could be wrong that changes in what I did will be productive. The situation with my oven is by no measure bad enough to warrant a tear down and/or rebuild/modification of my existing oven.

If I were designing one for the road I would think about using two domes with diameters something like 40 and 48 inches. One within the other and the space between filled with my basalt refractory or something similiar. The domes would have the entrance and transition areas in steel and would have all their top insulation exterior to the outer dome. The dome shells would be joined to each other at the the bases and they would be able to be bolted to a trailer frame. The idea being to keep the whole together regardless of road condition. The whole idea of using bricks on a trailer seems to me problem prone and destined to failure. Great for a static build but to paraphase Borat..... "for bouncing down a road... Not so much".

Wiley

[BCiliberto]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Hello Mr. Wiley!

I'm loving the oven i built early this year, and would like to put one together for on the road.

Have been admiring your work and postings-- great idea! Very clever!

How's your baking going? Are you hitting your temps, and is the heat being retained to your satisfaction?

I recently obtained a 500 gall propane tank and will probably be starting a truck mounted version of your oven soon. Any additional observations or advice ?

Thanks!

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Dave, Quilcene is just a short run away. I'm "free" most of the time and save for a tree I have to cut down and clean up, this Saturday would be fine. PM me if that works for you. I can show you the neighbors' two cob ovens as well. Can you find your way to the store in Nordland?

The rest of you, that's an inside joke ....... Nordland, the nearest town to where I live, has only one store! But directions to where I live are easy from there.
Wiley

[davelkins]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

That looks like a great oven. I really like the idea of using recycled items for useful products. Seems to me that it ought to work just fine. LOOKS GREAT! Sounds like you are in my neighborhood somewhere. Maybe I could get a chance to see it sometime. I'm at the stage right now of being sure that I want/need an oven. I just don't know what route I want to take. For my first attempt I'm thinking of an earth oven. The thought of a recycled steel dome is very interesting. Thanks.

[berryst]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

very professional looking build
Berryst

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Thank you for the kind words, Frances.
Your idea of the green is a good one. The color scheme for our house is the colors of the madrone or arbutis tree, sort of brickish red with a dark green. So yes, a few green hand prints mixed in amongst the red would work well, Thanks for the idea :-)
Wiley

[Frances]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

That looks great! It is very round , very clean lines there.

I really like the colour your wife chose, I bet it'll look good with red palm prints on it - and what a cool idea that is.

The oven ties in with the house nicely, too. Looking at the picture of it in front of the house I was thinking that a touch of green same as the window frames might look good on the oven, too. Just an idle idea though....

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Well it's taken longer than expected... like that's something new. Anyway, the color coat of stucco was unacceptable by SWMBO and so I dropped back and punted by painting the whole structure with an acrylic latex paint. It said it was for stucco and it was made by Valspar which is a reputable enough company. Color selected by my wife was a bit pinker than I would have liked but by contrasting it with a brick red bottom it almost works.

This is not the absolute final finish which will probably come next spring unless we get some very unusual weather that permits a large party or two. The plan is to cover the dome (pink) with handprints done in the brick red color. And the hands being as many friends as we can round up. It may take two or more parties to completely cover the dome.

So for those curious here's what it looks like at present: The usual mug shots: front, back, side, 3/4 and one "artsy shot" I found bending over to pick up some trash to clean up for the photos. After all the work I went thru to make it round it seems fairly close. The glass fishing float I picked up on my first return voyage from Hawaii 28 years ago.

Oh, and that's the oven's "rain hat". I made the chimney so it is easily removed and found this stainless steel bowl that just fits over the stainless tube that is where the stucco ends (see other postings if that isn't clear). And the stainless acorn nuts on the front will eventually be the attachment points for some wrought iron hooks which will hold the rake and the large "shovel peel" for when things really come amiss.
Wiley

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Just an update. This am I applied the second coat of stucco. One more, the color coat, and I'll be done with the stucco for the dome. Here's some pictures:
Wiley

[egalecki]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

I don't think mountain-climbing is a great idea, unfortunately. If there's a lot of give in the vermiculite layer there might not be enough support... but as far as cracking goes, there's a good elastomeric compound I get at Lowe's for repairing ceiling cracks when they're due to things I can't conquer, like roof trusses that flex in wind, etc. Look in the paint department, it's in a tube like caulk. It does a good job flexing and keeping the crack from coming back. It's paintable but not sandable, but you won't want to sand the stucco anyway, right?

If you're going to paint it, as well, you could use a light color to help keep the heat down... of course, judging from what a lot of people are doing lately, the step we take after building the wfo is building a pergola over it!

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Elizabeth,
The thickness varies. The vermiculite compressed as I pushed the stucco thru the hardware cloth as I expected. So in the areas between the "ribs" of rebar I think the thickness is around one half inch to five eights inch below the wire and 3/8 inch max above it. Where the rebar "ribs" would form a stiff point maybe one quarter inch at max. I first pushed a layer thru the hardware cloth and worked it back and forth to make sure there was a complete layer beneath the wires. Then I went back and dabbed on a thickness on top in order to form some roundness to the shape. I smoothed the surface to fairly round then ruined that shape by dragging the toothed trowel over the surface. Basically working one bay/rebar section at a time. There are a few places where there are some micro cracks from shrinkage of the mortar. Next coat will be thicker and will hopefully be uniform in thickness trying for something like one half inch (from the bottom of the toothed grouves) over the whole dome.

Basically this is my first project using stucco and so I'm improvising and making it up as I go. I read what I could before starting but most stucco is over a truly stiff surface like a wall. Ferro cement boats that I have seen done had two people working in unison, troweling one side against the other working together. But they had lots more metal (chicken wire) for the given thickness. Like I've heard said, "This is one of his early designs...and he sure learned alot from this one".

I will admit I am a bit concerned that the rebar will expand and contract with solar heating more that the rest and so form cracks over each rib with time. If that happens then some sort of elastic coating or paint will have to be used to make it waterproof.

There is a hollow sound when the surface is tapped sort of like tapping ones finger tip against a sheet rocked wall. I'm curious about how strong the finished structure will be. I have visions of one of my grandkids (who I think at times is half goat) scaling the dome playing mountaineer. And wondering just how much damage such an adventure would cause.
Wiley

[egalecki]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

your scratch coat looks good. How thick is it?

[Wiley]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

Elizabeth and Frances:
Thank you for the kind words :-) This project has sort of taken over my summer and many projects that were on this summer's "to do list" didn't even get started (much to my chagrin :-(

But on the bright side I think I see "the end of the beginning" as they say and might get this WFO weathered in before our rainy season usually sets in.

Here are some photos of the first coat/ scratch coat of stucco. The white material around the entrance and the chimney are closed cell foam which will be removed and the space they have created will be filled with high temperature silicone caulking. This is to provide for expansion of the heated dome.

Wiley

[Frances]

Re: Steel Dome Oven

I don't have the skill...