Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Thanks for the comments everyone. Matt I will send you a message if I have any questions. I am currently going to the Brickyard and Knife river for materials. Any other good places?

I am still plugging away. I will have some more pictures tomorrow. Have an idea on the vent flue that I am trying out.

I received my FB mortar and am putting on some more chains.
Is there any special trick to this mortar? I am just adding water until it is the consistency of loose peanut butter and then using. I has been 2 days and some of it doesn't seem to have dried up yet. Well today is another 95 degree day, so I am going to let the oven sit and bake in the sun, hope that will dry something out.

[Matt916]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

If you're talking about the brickyard on elder creek, thats also where i went. I was told once that H.C. Muddox off of Bradshaw will sell you any chipped or imperfect bricks that they have for a discount. they are also the people that supply the brickyard, so you may be able to get a considerable discount. i didnt try it...it was too out of the way and i just wanted to get my bricks so i could build ... but if money is an issue, you can possibly save some there.

as far as the mortar goes, i had the same worries, but given some time, it will harden up...actually, if you can, keep your mortar joints out of direct sunlight. maybe it was just me, but it seemed like the intense heat of sacramento summers affected the way some of my mortar cured, and some of it started to crumble away. it wasn't a big deal to patch back up, but it may save you some grief. Some of the guys on this board told me that you want your mortar to cure, not dry. if you do, it ill probably help reduce cracks when you're trying to cure your finished oven dome. any way, it sounds like you are doing a good job so far!

[bobb35]

1st major setback.

Well I went out to work on the old WFO today and the mortar still hadn't started to get hard. Weird, but I though it would happen eventually.

Well I went to the bag of FB mortar and lowe and behold - This mortar is binary. There are two different bags in the white sack. One full of grey powder and the other full of off white powder. 1st I have heard of this...guessing the two get mixed together 1:1 and then add water. No instruction and when i first opened the bag I didn't see the second bag.

Well ended up tearing off 2 days of work and salvaging what I could of the old mortar, which seemed to be fine as soon as you add water.

Oh yea, with the white stuff added this get hard fast, so fast in fact I wasted a 1/3 of a bag because it set up before I could use it.

Really mad at myself for not checking better, but a little torqued off at FB right now. No instructions, have never seen anything about a binary mortar (could just be me) in a bag like this. Hope they put something up somewhere so some other poor sucker doesn't end up with the same problems as me.

Spent the balance of the afternoon redoing the same work over and then had to stop. Hope I have enough mortar to finish this bad boy up. Figure 2-3 more chains to go.

Have some pictures but have to download them.

[Matt916]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

ahhh...i wish you hadn't torn down all your work! its ok though. I actually had the same problem that you had with that little white bag. I didn't know what to do with it either, so i called the phone number that came with the bag, and the told me it was called "activator" and its main purpose was to smooth out the consistency of the mortar, but it will set up fine either way. oh well, both of us had to learn that lesson i guess

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Thanks Matt, that would have been great, but the bag I received was blank. No number, no instruction. Anyway I am forging ahead and I think I will be OK.

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Quick update, FB contacted me on the mortar issue and is on the ball so Kudos to them.

3 more chains to go and I will have closed the dome.

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Ok here are some update pictures.

1st is me trying to cure some refractory cement in a fire.

Didn't have 9" clay rounds so I bought some ovals cut them and cemented them together. Seemed to work kind of OK.

Next are some pictures of the work in progress. Dome is going up. Only have 1 more chain and a capstone left. Hoping to be finished tomorrow.

Here is how the vent is going to sit on the arch. I will cut some brick and mortar it in place. I am hoping I will be able to get a good draw with only a 24" tall stack.

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Few more pictures

more of the oven vent and them some of the whole backyard. Getting ready for some concrete to be poured.

Fun, Fun Fun....

[Matt916]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

wow...thats a lot of concrete...i'm in the process of doing something similar...just about 1/3 the size. Are you renting a concrete truck, or are you going to buy and mix the concrete yourself? either way it seems like you're getting a lot done!

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Thanks Matt,

It works out to about 650 Sq Ft. Have a contractor coming in the morning with with the truck and pumper. Going after a stamped colored concrete and thought it would be a little much for me to do on my own. Sometimes the money is worth it.

Should be a huge change in the back yard in about 24 hours.

Speaking of which. I finished my dome today and set my vent chamber. Now the drying starts, which is kind of good because the next few days are supposed to be in the high 90s/100s. Wonder if I can skip the first fire day if the outside ambient is already at 100 degrees. Figure I will wait until Monday and then start my curing. Think I will try to accelerate the first four days into two, by doing a fire in the morning and then one at night. With 10 hours of cool down minimum between them. Should be OK, but I will check my temps...

Dome ended up being an inch higher(20.5 v 19.5) than I was shooting for but I'm OK with that because the top of my door was 1/2 higher than I wanted (12.5 v 12). My oven is 39 inches round so I don't think I will have any problems...

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Here's a few more update photos.

Currently on the 4th curing fire...3 more days to go. I am lighting 2 fires per day one morning one evening and letting them cool down in between.

Had the concrete poured and am working on tiling the rest of the kitchen.

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Forgot the pictures

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Ok, so now I am on my curing fires and I have a few questions.

I was working up the temperature chain and at about 400 degrees I started to get the spider crack on the outside of my dome. Didn't think much of it becasue it was a 1/4 to 3/8 inch parge coat I added after the dome was built and they looked like expansion cracks kind of like an egg shell.

Well I kept working my way up and the outside never really got hot until today when I finally went to 800 degrees. The cracks started to steam a little and it smelled like drying concrete. The steamed for about an hour and then dried out and the temp started to rise again. I kept the fire going at about 600-700 degrees for 6 hours and the outside of the dome is at about 220 to 260 depending on where you take the temperature.

The largest cracks are between 1/16-1/8 of inch. The steam smelled like drying cement and I didn't see any smoke coming out. I am guessing that this was just eh parge coat cracking and drying.

Haven't seen any cracks on the inside, but I have to get in there and take a look after it cools.

Here are some pictures, any thoughts.

Final question, at what temp is does the dome finally clear? Mine hasn't yet and I was just wondering.

[bobb35]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Here are the latest update pictures.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Pompeii 90 in Sacramento

Hey Bob, I can't imagine building a whole outdoor kitchen at the same time doing the Pompeii style wfo. You've pulled it off well. I like the horizontal stone, it looks really nice. Your pizza looks good too, but you'll see how it colors up better when the temp is in the 750+ range throughout.

I think the dome clears at around 800 deg to 850 deg of sustained and saturated heat. You'll see, it will be really easy to get there after about an hour of firing. I assume you don't have the insulation on yet? Do you plan on 4 inches of vermi-crete or 2+ inches insulation blanket? Once you put the insulation on, it gets a lot easier to get to those higher temps and hold them. Impossible without it. Those hairlines are small and I can't imagine any moisture left after your 800 deg fire. I now go to 800 to 900 deg fires at the peak for a short time and find the whole thing clears easily and saturates with heat for hours.

Great job,
-Dino