Chip's 42 in Minnesota

[mrchipster]

Re: Chip's 42 in Minnesota

Had a week off to go to Canada fishing.

My FB insulation board and mortar showed up on Friday and my daughter had to lug it into the garage because we were in Canada.

We had a huge rainstorm here and the floor of my oven got wet but not too bad. I will be adding more protection to the sides as we had horizontal rain and 3+ inches of the stuff in less than 2 hours. Lost several branches of some of my trees but my temporary roof over the oven held in there like a champ.

I was able to fit the insulation board into the cavity of the floor and I was able to lay the previously cut floor bricks. Also mixed up a small batch of the FB mortar and put down 1/2 of the first chain of bricks. I am going with three vertical half bricks instead of soldiers, I think it is stronger and achieves about the same height as vertical soldiers.

I will be cutting all of my bricks to try and get a nice small joint on each chain.

As mentioned previously I have a 14 inch brick saw so cutting through the 4 inch sides is no problem.

First photo is of today's progress. Floor, and start of first chain. The above mentioned rain held me up for a good portion of the day.

Just prior to departing for Canada I poured the top of my prep table and I think I have a very interesting storage location for my peels and other long tools. The prep table (photos 2 and 3) is 4 blocks high with a 3.5 inch slab poured on top. The last front block is a series of 4 inch hollow concrete blocks. On top of the 3rd block layer and below the 4th block is a piece of 1/8 inch aluminum sheet metal. This allows me to have a 66 inch deep X 15-1/2 inch wide X 7.5 inch tall storage tray just under the top of my layout table. This would be dead space anyway and I believe will be a great place to store my tools.

In the 2nd photo you see my mixing bowl for my mortar in the opening of the tool storage area. I will put a wood or other door on this opening once the brick work is done.

The 3rd photo is of the working side of the prep table

I mixed up 24 oz (volume - I used a cottage cheese container to measure) of Forno Bravo mortar with 8 oz water and it seems to give a good consistency. I may add 8.5 oz next time just to see if it a little stickier at that ratio. I was able to set 20 bricks with the 24 oz of mortar - i am cutting my bricks and as this was only the first course I only had mortar on the sides.

I had a little left over mortar that started to set up so I had to toss it. I could have done about 4 more bricks with the leftover material if I had worked faster. I probably dropped (wasted) material enough to set another 5 or 6 bricks.

I am using a stainless mixing bowl and a silicone spatula to mix the mortar and butter the bricks. I also have one stiff and one flex margin trowels that I rely on also.

Chip

[mrchipster]

Re: Chip's 42 in Minnesota

Chip,

Great start to your oven. The protected dual-layer of insulation and cantilever in a corner-installation look all too familiar! Keep the pics coming.

John

Well, I thought I could borrow some ideas from the best that I have found on this site.

As someone once said "Good artists copy, Great artists steal...." and I hope to be able to achieve "Good artist" status.

These photos are of my dirt, rebar, arch and me actually working 2 weeks ago.

Chip

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: Chip's 42 in Minnesota

Chip,

Great start to your oven. The protected dual-layer of insulation and cantilever in a corner-installation look all too familiar! Keep the pics coming.

John

[mrchipster]

Re: Chip's 42 in Minnesota

Some additional Photos

1, Oven base fires pour with forms.
2, Form for Insulating Layer
3, Form in second layer of Concrete
4, Cardboard Layout.

[mrchipster]

I have been working on my oven stand and preparing for the build. I poured 2.5 inches of Vermiculite concrete (vermicrete) into my form this morning and it is already firming up.

The FB insulating board, refractory mortar and insulating blankets are on their way. I ordered from one of the FB dealers and the shipping was quite a bit less than fro California. Check out this link High Quality Barbecue Grills and Accessories at Wholesale Patio Store - Manufacturer Products.

I will be putting 2 inches of FB board on top of my Vermicrete.

Here is what has happened so far,

1. First I had to remove about 10 yards of dirt and clay to make room for the oven, there are still about 4 yards still remaining on my patio. I have been donating it to others via Craiglist and have had about 6 takers thus far. ne guy took about 5 trailer loads but all the others only a pickup load or two.

It is fun running a Toro Dingo (mini walk behind skid steer). Rental with trailer, bucket and 8 inch auger bit $400

2. Because I live in Minnesota the frost line is 48 inches and we need to have 52 inch footings to guarantee no frost heaving so I put down 5 Sonotube concrete forms under a 5.5 inch slab reinforced with rebar.

Forms and rebar $100.

3. The slab was poured using a local mix by the trailer load ready mix at Broadway Rental in Brooklyn Center. Easier than hand mixing a yard of concrete but quite a bit more expensive. $185

4. Built up my block for the oven base using 8x8x16 standard block and filled each core also put in horizontal rebar to provide retaining wall support to hold back the hill. Lots of concrete and rebar.

I did pour all of the blocks full. Now I have a place to go in a tornado.

Block for oven and prep table, rebar, 1/2 inch concrete board and 45 sacks of concrete mix $250.

5. I the process of the build I decided to put the brick veneer on before pouring the oven floor due to the cantilever at the oven entry.

Veneer brick is St Paul Street brick 900 ea. purchased a year ago for $300.

6. I supported the Concrete board with the blocks I will be using for the prep table with 2X4 and 4X4 sections with shims that were easy to remove. Lumber was salvage from a friend $0 (nice).

6. Formed and Fitted the Aluminum sheeting to waterproof the oven level from the surrounding ground.

7. Built the form for the insulating layer under the oven and poured the area on the outside with an additional 4 inches of concrete.

8. That brings us up to today, I poured the Vermiculite concrete and began cutting the brick for my oven floor.

I was able to pick up a 14 inch Norton Clipper block saw last year for $350 and got 3 - 14 inch diamond blades with it.

Cutting the firebrick with that saw is like cutting cheese.

Oh Buy the way the water pump on the saw was missing so I rigged up a standard sump pump inside a large trash bin and use that to recirculate the cooling water, I had to put a diverter valve on the pump because it pushes to much water so I needed to take some off before it got to the blade.

I will be posting more photos as this thread develops.

Last photo is of Today's vermiculite concrete holding up 6 bricks. I am sure it could have held more but why chip such nice bricks.

Chip