Continued Design Ideas

[brickie in oz]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

My barrel takes about 1 to 1 1/2 to get to temp.
And it stays hot enough to cook in for 3 days.

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

My barrel takes about 1 to 1 1/2 to get to temp.
And it stays hot enough to cook in for 3 days.

I've looked at your build several times and have to say it is impressive. I've considered the vault mainly because I've never worked with brick or stone. But you, a total jedi master stone builder also chose the vault over the dome. Curious to know your reasons.

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

I did much the same as you, started with a $0 budjet...
Decide what you want your oven to do and go from there. I have had good luck and am pleased with our design.

Derk

Hi Derk. This is Craig in Sandy. I'm still hoping to drive up and take a look at yours. I told my wife about your soccer party and she is now excited to have our back yard tore up again.

[brickie in oz]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

I had a home made castable oven prior, it was built after one I did in an oven building workshop and even though the person taking the workshop was the "master" of all things kilns and ovens it didnt perform well at all.

I did the research for a better oven which led me here to this forum, I looked at all the fine ovens built by novices but couldnt understand and still dont, as to why they take on so much work with all that cutting for a dome.

Barrels are way easier to build, I can hear all the domers now, screaming "no its not" at their monitor....

I built a 1/4 scale dome Pompeii just for fun recently and it was as hard to build as the actual barrel build of my oven, so I wouldnt like tackle a full sized one.

The straight lines of the oven walls and the vaulted roof won the day.

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Barrels are way easier to build...The straight lines of the oven walls and the vaulted roof won the day.

You're singing my song and its music to my ears. Vault is easy. Easy is better. Vault is better. Maybe I got no brain but this is a no brainer. Vault it is. Thanks.

Craig

[Derkp]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Craig, My construction photos are here somwhere search for Derkp. Tscarborough's build play by play is great too.

Good luck,
Derk

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

A couple of questions: Can Perlcrete be used for the hearth and can I form it up as shown to hold the front together and support the chimney?

[Tscarborough]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Not usable for any exposed or wearing surface.

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Can it be covered with ceramic tile?

[david s]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

The Daniel RHodes kiln building bible advises against the end walls being outside the arch, they should be inside it, although it does require more brick cutting. One would presume that an oven would have the same requirement.

[brickie in oz]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

You're singing my song and its music to my ears. Vault is easy. Easy is better. Vault is better. Maybe I got no brain but this is a no brainer. Vault it is. Thanks.

Craig

My build is now available in ebook format for the Kindle.
You can download a PC viewer from Amazon too.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

It can not be covered with tile. It has decent compressive strength, but almost zero strength in any other measurement.

[Derkp]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Search the site for perlcrete, vermicrete, there are many posts concerning this interesting substance. I used 4" directly under my oven on top of 4 inches of regular concrete work.
Derk

[Derkp]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Craig,

My design is almost identical to your #1, except I found 4 -1/2 arches exactly loike yours, and put the first 2 plus a keystone right next to the last barrel arch, then a firebrick spacer or two and then the other 2 -1/2 arches. The flue straddles the two full arches.

Derk

[clofgreen]

Re: Continued Design Ideas

Having decided to build a vault oven I started doing some research on this forum. There seems to be a lot of debate about arches and what makes them work and what makes them fail.

This is my first choice vault. It follows the taper of the brick except half way up where it flattens out slightly to give me a 17" inside dome height (30" x 40" x 17" I.D.). I will cover this with 1 inch of refractory mortar then 2 inches of perlcrete then 4 inches of perlite. I think that the vault will be sturdy and that mortar and perlcrete will make it even more so. I like the simplicity of this design (fewer cuts) but started to wonder if the vault will fail.



This led me to study a catenary vault. If I cut my larger bricks in half at a diagonal they can receive the vault. It follows the taper of the brick except at the top third where it flattens out to follow the catenary curve. This vault is 15 inches high and the design looks sturdy but I wonder that all that mass at the bottom will be a heat sink.



Please comment remembering that I want to make as few cuts as is reasonable.