Feeling brave... a true Neopolitan Pizza Oven

[johnrbek]

Re: Feeling brave... a true Neopolitan Pizza Oven

James,

Thanks for the encouragement and vote of confidence... We have a Sony HD video cam and a couple pretty good digital cams.. we're already recording the progress.. and I'll definitely submit once it gets interesting..

I did see the cut brick to set the dome angle reference in my research here as well as as on the masonry oven heaters site in one of their workshops.. It would seem to me that it would be almost a requirement to get a nice clean transition between the soldiers and the dome chains. Thanks for your input clarifying this previously.

I do hope that you'll be able to provide input / pointers based on the images of neopolitan oven construction photo's you've seen previously.... that would n't be a violation of your agreement would it ?? We'll be pushing the envelope with this one I think and I'd like to clarify some of the mystique that's associated with this design... maybe make it a more common build choice...

By the way, when I add progress images and diagrams, should I start a new thread or just continue adding to this one?

Not sure what tufa is, but have a good trip to Naples anyway...

[james]

Re: Feeling brave... a true Neopolitan Pizza Oven

John,
Welcome aboard, and let me be the first to say -- cool. It's going to be fun watching, and hopefully helping with your project.

Of course you could just buy a Casa110, and you get the low dome design as standard.

I have seen many construction photos of Naples ovens being build (almost all with the promise I would not publish them), I have seem them being built and have cooked in the ovens, and it sounds like a great undertaking.

Honestly, I think there is so much in common between the two designs that the differences have been emphasized much too much. Still, wanting a low-dome oven is cool, and wanting to build one is great.

I made a posting a while back on using a cut brick to set the oven dome angle, which will come in handy. You need to use a single full-high soldier to get the first course high enough, set your inward angle with a cut brick, and you need to support the upright bricks with mortar because of the outward thrust of the dome itself.

Take photos and keep us in the loop the whole way through.

I am in Naples in about two weeks, so I can Fed Ex you some tufa. Forno Bravo will have a number of exciting Naples-related announcements in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that.

Salute.
James

[jwnorris]

Re: Feeling brave... a true Neopolitan Pizza Oven

Welcome John,

You have come to the right place, for if nothing else there is a vast aray of builders and users here. I am sure that their opinions, suggestions, and heart felt help will be coming soon.

As for myself, I love my Casa110. Good luck in whatever design you build.

J W

[johnrbek]

Been thinking this over for a long time and tracking the pro's and con's of round vs rectangular (i.e., Pompeii vs Scott design) for a pizza oven, as well as, Tuscan vs Neopolitan within the round dome realm... I tracked back serveral years in this forum as well as the forums over at pizzamaking.com and pulled references from James as well as Marco (pizzanapoletana) over at pizzamaking.com (I'm sure some of you are familiar with him and his pizza oven "philosophy"..)

As I was sitting waiting for inspection of my foundation forms yesterday, I started to give serious thought to exactly what I wanted and thought I'd do a little more in depth research. I went out to the web and attempted to pull diameter, height, door height, door width dimensions and ratio's on every residential and commercial oven I could find with similar dimensions (42" int dia) in order to compare their interior height to diameter ratios and interior height to door height ratios... I calculated an average of the 5 or so I could find readily and compared that against stated Neopolitan design specs quoted by James & Marco... (Please note the pdf I've attached with results).

I know many of you are very happy with theTuscan design and make great pizza with it, but I'm feeling a little brave and thinking I might be willing to risk some loss of time and maybe a few hundred bucks in firebrick if I screw up and make a true Neopolitan style pizza oven... I know it's harder.. I know it's pushing the envelope, but if colonelcorn76 never pushed the envelope, odds are, a lot of us would never have built our ovens... either that or they'd be Scott ovens... True??

In order to clarify my thoughts I've attached a couple images submitted by Marco at pizzamaking.com some time back as well as a .gif of a cad drawing I did this morning putting down a more formal depiction.. (please see attached, click mouse on image if too small to read...)

Over time I've seen more and more posts / inquiries / thoughts on the "volta bassa" design and we'd be pushing further in that direction with this build...

So.. why the post.. well.. to solicit thoughts.. pointers.. ideas... gotcha's to look out for and general exploration of the subject...

Thanks for any and all input!