Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

VJ - just click on my name in any of the posts. Then there is a "send message" and you can select "private".

Jeff

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

It's gone from a week of rain to nights below freezing. The weather is certainly not conducive to much progress.
It did take advantage of the 'dry' weather and worked on cutting bricks for the sides of the inside arch and the bricks that are adjacent to it for courses 2,3 and 4.
I dry fit them and stacked some more bricks at the entrance to get the feeling of the layout. I'll have 12 1/4" from the face of the arch to the front of the oven, and another 12" of granite. The inside arch is 20" wide and will be 12" at the center and 9" at the sides.
One good thing about cool weather is the beer stays cold longer!
Here are a few pictures...

[Dino69]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

Looking good. You're really making some great progress.

David

[Sananguero]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

I like the taper on the dome bricks you cut that meet the entry way bricks. Things are lookin good!

Karl

[banhxeo76]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

I love your small mortar joint between each brick. I wish I could get my joint that small. Super Job! Perhap, I should take my time to get a correct cut on my brick.

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

Well those fine joints have disappeared.

I've found that my dome isn't closing fast enough, so I"m correcting as I place the 6th course. I cut the bricks so that I could turn them vertical.
I had 20 1/2 bricks and mixed up the mud and started laying them. After an hour (including a 20 minute interruption by the neighbor) I had them in place and I left for dinner. An hour later I came back to see that some had shifted slightly. They slid a 1/4" or less, of course not in a uniform manner. I may be hand grinding some corners to even things out.

I knew I was going to have to fill the triangular gaps created by not beveling the sides of the bricks. I've seen all sorts of ovens here and I know it'll be ok to fill these gaps, but I can't stop the subconscious nagging saying how much better I could do. Given more time (or a lot of money) I'm sure I could but I want to get those curing fires going.

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

I need to start breaking down the tasks into what can be done in a hour or so.
Even if it means 15 bricks at a time.

Good news: The Heatstop50 I paid almost $100 for last year is down to $75 - it's still expensive. I still need to try the homebrew with the new sand I got - may this weekend.

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

75 degrees after work today and got most of the sixth course done. I did get creative in how I cut the bricks to get the profile closer to where is should be.

Here are some pics. I'll go back and fill in between the bricks using a mortar bag next before I add the course. Too bad it's going to be raining after work tomorrow.
It's even level! Wish I took a picture if that!





Jeff

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

75 degrees after work today and got most of the sixth course done. I did get creative in how I cut the bricks to get the profile closer to where is should be.

Here are some pics. I'll go back and fill in between the bricks using a mortar bag next before I add the course. Too bad it's going to be raining after work tomorrow.
It's even level! Wish I took a picture if that!
Picture 1

Picture 2

Jeff

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

@banhxeo76 - thanks for the kind words. i wish it were going faster.

@ Sananguero I hope I can keep the taper going. The next couple courses will be a challenge. I want to taper the arch bricks to make the dome match it better.

[Cheesesteak]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

@ Sananguero I hope I can keep the taper going. The next couple courses will be a challenge. I want to taper the arch bricks to make the dome match it better.

It all looks great Jeff. Interesting thing with the taper . . . so many people spend so much time trying to get it tight and seamless - and, after a dozen or so firings - I've realized that the taper is the least viewable area in the oven when its done. I stare into my oven on occasion to see how its doing - and can't even see the taper unless I get on my back and shimmy my way into the oven.

Build a strong oven - and build to your preference - but don't stress out about visual appearance of things you'll likely never see. One man's opinion, of course -

[Gulf]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

It is deffinately looking good Keep it up. I hope this storm front tonight leaves everyone safe, high, and dry!

[PizzaIdiot]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

I made some progress last weekend and I finally got the pictures uploaded tonight.
The top course is about an inch out of round and the taper isn't uniform, but it's still level. Not sure now I managed that - lol.

Jeff

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Jeff's 42" Pompeii in Easley, SC (near Greenville,SC)

Jeff, I hear (have read) your dome is complete. Post some more pics if you have them.

You mentioned that you've got some small cracks after firing/ curing it. Don't worry about weather you should have insulated or not before firings.

Since you can see that no smoke escapes any cracks (or even if you laid a piece of white insulation blanket on a crack during a smokey fire and eventually saw some tiny black soot on it) once you insulate your dome, it holds all the heat/smoke in and your oven functions like normal.

Are you planning on glass-fiber insulation (FB blanket?) or vermi-crete mix? Which ever you do, it will then enclose your oven and hairline cracks (or somewhat larger like mine) your wfo will hold heat and work properly like the rest of ours.

-Dino