30inch/75cm castable dome on wooden frame

[R3CALL]

Hi all,

Like a lot of people I have been looking at this site for too long thinking of options and designs and think I'm ready to go. This is take 2, my first take was quickly shot down (and rightly so) by beehives and DavidS as it was going to be a vermiculite dome.

So my plan is to have a frame made off 100mm timber with 6 legs. Design is attached. I did outline this in a previous thread but cant seem to locate it. It will be installed on decking hence the timber frame as opposed to brick wall. So please watch this thread as I will be posting slowly over the coming weeks.

Have to give credit to aaronpizza and mullster threads as I have been reading theirs for research.

I have used the very useful materials calculator on this forum to estimate how much i need and will be placing the order this week. Appreciate if anyone can tell me i have missed something.

I need to make a decision on what size bricks I want as the victas site has both the 230x114 in either 32 or 64 mm for the same price of £2.40. So would need some advice if 32mm is too small or 64 too big??

Thanks for looking, happy for feedback and pointers as I am a noob at this.

[loganc10]

I'm in the planning phases of a similar build. I can't speak from anecdotal evidence, but I can share some of the design decisions and reasoning thus far that I've aggregated from some existing builds and advice given regarding the base.

Many will say that wood is sub-optimal compared to concrete or steal bases. It will tend to move and the joints become loose over the years. I'm only designing for a 3-5 year build, as I'm not in my 'forever home', and am not building my 'forever oven'. You'll have your own reasoning for going this route. Looking at your sketch I'd recommend two things:

• Bump the ~4"x4" up to a 4"x6" post
• Add some diagonal bracing to prevent racking under weight.

I intend to only do 4 4x6 post in the corners and additional 4x6 or 4x4 cross/diagonal bracing on all 3 sides but the front. I'll then encase the bottom and top in a 2"x6", similar to what you have in your sketch (I think). I'm finishing up some sketchup drawings I can post if interested.

I built a expanded calculator that does weight/material estimates of the concrete hearth, V/p-crete floor/dome insulation layers, etc. I'll try to polish it up and send it to you for reference. At the end of the day, you will be looking at another 300 pounds for concrete hearth, ~200 pound homebrew dome cast, 40-80 pounds of fire brick, and p/v-crete insulation layers, etc. Just make sure the wood stand is design to handle it all.