Alex’s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

[cobblerdave]

I plan on using black grout which hopefully will give a decking appearance. Any thoughts about the gap around the oven? Should use high temp silicone? Personally I'm not very good at the old silicone and fear I will make a an absolute mess. The only real area of high temp will be directly out the front of the oven. The rest of the oven remains fairly cool.

G'day Bert
Sicaflex is better than silastic to fill the gapes it's made for boat decking.
Tape the edges. Fill the gapes, them smooth with with a rag soaked in mineral turps. The turps is a bit greasy and silastic and sicaflex doesn't tend to stick. Still have heaps of rags and use heaps so there's no chance of getting anything on the bare wood. Remove the tape straight away before it skins. Did a BBQ bench years ago this way and it turned out pretty special.

Regards dave

[Sharkey]

Good to see you are making progress, even if it is slow. I know how you feel.

The timber look tiles look pretty good. My tip for not making a mess with the silicon would be to mask off each joint using that blue painters tape. Then if any mess does get on the tiles you can lightly cut using a straight edge and a stanley knife and then just peel the tape off. You will end up with perfectly straight joints and no mess.

[Bert]

I plan on using black grout which hopefully will give a decking appearance. Any thoughts about the gap around the oven? Should use high temp silicone? Personally I'm not very good at the old silicone and fear I will make a an absolute mess. The only real area of high temp will be directly out the front of the oven. The rest of the oven remains fairly cool.

[Bert]

Thanks Alex and Randy

I was initially looking at a wood bench top but the oven is extremely exposed and there would have been a lot of expansion and contraction.

I though these ceramic wood tiles would be a good alternative and hold up to the various temperature fluctuations.

I spent the extra money and bought the flexible tile adhesive...Hopefully she holds up. It certainly stuck good.

Although I've been using the oven for a year it isn't really practical for parties yet. A deck still needs to be built together with some steps and a platform for the oven. Once that is complete she'll be a goer!

Haven't used the oven for a while as I've run out of wood which worked out ok as I didn't want to heat up the hearth until I completed the tiling.

Need to find a viable long term wood supplier as the local guy is good but the hard wood is $220 cubic meter.

If any locals have suggestions I would appreciate.

Cheers

Al

[RandyJ]

I like the look of the wood ceramic tile. That is a very sharp look. Keep up the good work.

Randy

[sharptailhunter]

Bert,

Looking great! I like your setting. I bet it's fun to have friends and family over. You do good work!

-Alex

[Bert]

Been a while and noticed the new look forum! great for adding pictures.

Mucking around with some fake timber ceramic tiles for bench top.

I created an edge with some aluminium tile strip.

Heaps of work like anything to do with the WFO. Lots of cutting. I get some cardboard and make a template then transfer it to the tile.

Happy with the look just need to finish cutting and glue down.

[Sharkey]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Well done Alex. It's good to hear you're oven is up and cooking.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

G'day
Congrats, that turned out very neat, you got to happy with that
Regards dave

[Bert]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

My Faux keystone which de-laminated

Will have to modify design!

[Bert]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Well I've been lazy with my posting so here is some updated photos. I may do something unorthodox and work my post back with photos.

I am very pleased with how the oven has turned out. I've been using the oven since September last year and it has great temperature holding capacity. I can generally get 3 days of cooking out of it after firing and slow cooked lamb shanks are a favorite.

Did Guinness Pie filling in it last night (Sunday) from a Saturday fire (forgot to put the door on when I went to bed so lost quite a bit of heat) however the oven was still stable at 150c. Ideally I was going to put 75mm of ceramic blanket but I had two issues 1. ran ever so short with product 2. the added thickness would not have been viable as the dome would have encroached with side wall.

I need to build the floor level up to oven floor height and tile it then I'm done!

[Bert]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Thanks Sharkey, for some reason i missed this and oh how i paid! Got the thing closed now and onto the flue arch thus weekend.

[Sharkey]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Hi Alex

I think those photos of the arch have made everyone believe that is your oven, but I think those pics have come from Field Furnace.

You have the angles on your next arch brick round the wrong way. Here is what you should do:

First, sit a normal, full brick in position. In my attached pic I have marked the rough size of a brick with a black line.

Next, use your dome tool and mark how deep the brick needs to be. This is the red line on the pic. The bottom of the brick should match the brick it is sitting on, so just trace a line there.

Once you have this marked make this cut. The cut face will become part of the inner dome wall.

Next, the blue line. Sit the cut brick back in place and projecting a line from the center of the oven (use your dome tool again) mark a line so that when you cut the brick the cut surface is half a brick in length. That is, this cut is where the dome bricks meet the arch, so it needs to be half a brick (115mm) long.

Remember, you only need to do this on the top of each brick, the underside can be traced from the previous row.

As you come higher up the arch the bricks get more vertical, but this method will still work.

Remember, the red cut is the inner wall of the dome and the blue cut is the intersection of arch and dome. When you do it once you will realise it's not so difficult.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Burt,

Looks like you got the tapered arch dialed in. Keep arch ahead of the dome course, easier to adjust dome bricks than arch bricks.

[Bert]

Re: Alex?s Pizza Kitchen (APK) build, Central Coast, NSW Australia

Dear Russell, cheers, yes I was planning on cutting the arch bricks, but the concept is confusing me. The first photo is where I am currently at. The first course and second course are in, but I cannot figure out the third course angle. I marked top and bottom on the brick and cut it to mirror the dome. It looks and fits well however I am not sure how to progress it further. The door arch will be higher than the dome brick course so I guess that?s where the taper comes in together with the back off the arch to allow the dome brick to intersect it as it curves in.

The second and third photos are where I need to eventually be. I know some peeps build their door arch first but due to the access issues for my oven I decided to build it as I go?didn?t want to knock and damage.

Dear Colin, yes the things are so porous it was the only way to get the things down. The site attracts a large amount of heat and I have noticed with the hot Autumn weather the slab and bricks dry out remarkably quickly.

Any assistance that the forum could offer regarding the marking out of the door transition would be great.

Cheers Al