Mississippi 44"

[brickie in oz]

Re: Mississippi 44"

My damper is made from 3 insulating firebricks all silasticed together.
There is a sacrificial metal skid plate also silasticed to the bricks.

I also have a metal skid plate in the damper entry floor too.

The part of the chimney where the damper slides into also has insulating fire bricks at the same point, I figured it would stop a lot of heat transfer and heat from going up the flue, so far it has worked a treat.

The skid plate on the damper has suffered from the heat but surprisingly the silastic has help up.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Great idea.

Only down side I can think of would be the extra reach needed to get pizzas in and out.

If you had a removable damper you could hang bigger stuff down the chimney

I once had a slow roasted leg of lamb cooked on a chain hung in chimney in Istanbul.

Thanks TropicalCoasting
I haven't had any experince with actually working in front of a pizza/bread oven before so I can only rely on assumptions, but with a large style oven I think most of the work is going to be performed with long handled peels anyway. I figure that in the worst case scenario, I may have to extend the length of the peels. I am hoping though that this limitation will be offset by more versitilty in the ovens use.

Leg of lamb/Istanbul, now that sounds like a thread of it's own

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Brickie,
Thanks for the reply. I had the sliding gate pictured in my mind but I never would have guessed the insulation factor. Now, that is very interesting and I can see where it would add more versitility to what I am trying to build.
Thanks again, I am going to have to study on that one.

[brickie in oz]

Re: Mississippi 44"

There is a sweet spot with the damper pushed in until it just over balances, at that point the heat is mainly retained in the oven with very little smoke out the door.
At that point you can watch the thermometer rise rapidly like in the vid.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Along with a vented door, I can see where that would be handy as early in the ball game as the curing process. I am not sure if I will include insulation in my damper but it will definately be a homebuilt. I will have a door for my interior arch to conserve heat in the oven when baking. I'm not sure that I would need insulation at the damper for smoking meats. I am ditching the ideas of the 36" and 24 firelace dampers. I will either go with a knife type damper such as yours or a home built quarter turn.
Thanks for the info that is an excellent idea.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Due to poor planning for the chimney/flu I had to extend the 4? vermiculite base. To match the original pour, I finished the top ?? with fine vermiculite. I?m not sure if it was the fact that it was getting dark or the Budweiser, but the addition wasn?t perfect. It was rounded and higher than the form.



Since it had not set up to much in 5 days I was able to correct the problem with an already dull handsaw.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

I laid out a base for the heat-break arch to give it a footprint to help make it more stable as it would free stand during this part of the construction.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Now it was time to try my hand at home-brew. The only dry sand that I could acquire was play sand from HD. I used the screen that I previously used to filter the brick dust from the wet saw. This was what was left over after filtering 3 red solo cups.



The home brew took a little getting used to, but with a little experimentation and remembering the tip to wet the brick, it worked out just fine. Actually I did not soak the brick in a bucket before laying them. I just kept a small bucket of water near by and a using a small paint brush to wet the bed joint of each brick in the arch just prior to applying the mortar. The home brew sets fast and is easy to clean afterword.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

The completed heat-break arch. You can see daylight in a couple of these shots.



\

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

I started on the rest of the chimney/fireplace today. The outside arch is identical to the "heat-break" arch. I am struggling at the terminology so bare with me





I ran out of daylight and after cleaning up had to cover everything up with a heat light. It is supposed to get near freezing tonight. So I did not get any pics of todays progress. I'll take pics tomorrow while waiting on the temp to rise.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Mississippi 44"

You need to make the outer arch bigger than the inner arch so that you do not have to have a 2 piece door.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

Sorry Tscarborough

I know that my terminology has a lot to be desired. My "Internal Arch" is actually a good bit smaller than the two arches which make up the backbone for my chimney/fireplace. I refer to them as the "Heat-Break" and "Outside" arches.
I refer to the heat-break arch by that name because there will be a heat-break between it an the internal (oven entry) arch. My oven door should fit easily through the fireplace arches.



If I had had only 30 more minutes of daylight, I could have got a pic that would have made this a little easier to explain but I could already hear those three familiar frogs croaking: Bud, Weis and Er

[brickie in oz]

Re: Mississippi 44"

but I could already hear those three familiar frogs croaking: Bud, Weis and Er

Funny......

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

These shots show all 3 arches completed.

[Gulf]

Re: Mississippi 44"

I'm cutting the brick to rack into about 24" this morning.




Well I guess it's warm enough now to mix some mortor