Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

[Tscarborough]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

I smell pizza....

[texman]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

That looks great! congratulations. I like that keystone. How are you doing the flue transition in the rear? I had to do some heroics back there so learn from me. Be sure and build your flue transition with support from the rear of the arch.
Tracy

[Bacterium]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

just cutting in.....
Nice work Russell read it most days as inspiration for when the weather turns and my build accelerates.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

My counters are pretty bad. I poured in place, and then just ground them off smooth. I wasn't real concerned about looks just function. Do a search for polished counters and there are some excellent examples on here.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

I wouldn't polish at all, just hard trowel it.

[texman]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

i second the hard trowel.
Tracy

[Bookemdanno]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Russ, i love it, the finishing touches are truly superb. The Keystones, inspired.

Very class act. Enjoy it, and the admiration from all who get to see it firsthand.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

A friend gave be some fire bricks that would work for my vent/chimney without a lot of cutting so I decided to give them a try. Wow, the HF saw cut through them like butter, maybe 1/4 the time of my old 65% alumina bricks. That should of been my first red flag. As I finished my first layer of the vent bricks the strength of these bricks just did not seem right, they were crumbly and grainy. There seem to be micro fractures in cross sections of the brick. My guess they have been sitting out through several winters and the freezing and thawing took its toll. They ended up in the garbage can and I started over with the old "hard" brick. I did not want to risk installing substandard brick in my vent and chimney stack. Lesson learned, if it too good to be true it probably is.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Almost done with Chimney/Vent just need to cut the top cap for the anchor plate. Then I have a 3' section of double wall SS Chimney. Brick cuts for the vent transition were a challenge, lot of angles. Installed the ceramic rope in thermal break and I have some 2300 F caulking going over the rope. Have been warming the oven with halogen lights with the dome temperature peaking at about 150 F. Not going to do any more until the vent/chimney mortar has a chance to dry. Started gathering materials to form and pour the polished concrete hearth.

Amac, does the chimney design look familar, thugged it from you

[deejayoh]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

that oven is too purty. needs some smoke stains!

JK. Nice work. Looking forward to seeing the concrete pour. I am going to do the same with my counter, but I think I'm going to learn from you on this one

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Dee,

Been doing alot of research, going to embed with glass (beer bottles), not sure on color of concrete yet. Melamine is suppose to be best material for forming due to slick surface. Been watching AMAC to see how his polish concrete pour is coming along. Yeah, probably will be getting smoke stains in a couple weeks. Right of passage???

[Amac]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Amac, does the chimney design look familar,

It looks a hell of a lot better finished Russell. I'll never make the masons guild - but that is some neat bricklaying and pointing.

Been watching AMAC to see how his polish concrete pour is coming along

The concrete polish is going OK. Definitely far from perfect but I think it will be good enough I don't have to cover it in tiles I had some slight sagging towards the middle of the form - and some bubbles I didn't vibrate out, also some clustering of my glass. The bubbles are not a big problem as they can be filled but take care with the form - make sure you seal the edges. If the melamine is coating chipboard it will swell with any moisture. I used gafferr tape which worked well.
One problem with pouring in situ is you can't polish right up to the corners around the arches. I will just be making a best effort there using the pads manually.

[Breadjunkie]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Russel,
Hello from a new forum member. Your oven is a beauty. I have picked up a world of good info from your thread. Thanks for sharing. I am in the beginning stages of my project but trying to look ahead so I can keep all my ducks in a row. I was wondering, since you are in a hot, dry, climate if you kept your freshly mortared joints wet while they cured? I know concrete needs to be kept wet for as long as possible to slow down the cure, but I don't know about bricks and mortar. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Joe

[cnicholson]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Russel,

Your build is clean my man!! Hey where did you find your rope? All I found online was hundreds of feet of the stuff!

I did a polished concrete top for my adjacent BBQ area and I think it came out great. A bit rustic looking which worked perfect for the application and I stripped the forms and have them sitting in my garage to use the other side for the WFO landings/tops.

I too did my research and I used the "Cheung" method with Quikrete countertop mix ($11 per bag at HD, special order) and some integral color powder I bought online and seled it with real tung oil. One thing I noticed about the Quickrete mix is that there is no aggregate in it, just coarse sand. There are a lot of little multi-color flecks going on in it as well (red brick it almost looks like), to me it almost looks like the sand came off a composite roof shingle. The other thing about the Quikrete is that when they say platicized- they mean it. I followed the water amounts and mixing times precisely and the mixture was the consistency of green slime and didn't flow like a regular concrete. Doing further research on concrete tops leads me to believe that it is intended to be a "press-in" mix, there were lots of pinholes (easily filled/polished) thus giving (to me at least) the rustic look. I also bought a set of diamond pads off Amazon for $40 and put them on my 4 1/2" orbital sander...it worked good but I think I would/am going to HF and get a disposable sander.

All that being said I think I am going to use regular Quickrete 5000, add some decorative aggregate and platicizers for my next go around. I'll probably use the same color powder but I do want the WFO to be different. The best thing about these tops is you can do ANYTHING you can think of with them, they look pretty good and comparatively (if you don't count the time invested!!) they are super cheap. Polishing pads ($40), mix ($60), form melamine ($30) put me back a whopping $130. I went to a remnant stone place and told them I would template, pick up and install the top and I was quoted $650, and the price would go up if it wasn't a remnant.

Keep up the good work gents...all you guys motivate me!!

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

CN,

There is a freight damage place here in SLC that I frequent weekly. They had a roll I picked up for cheap. How much you need? I may have some left over and would be glad to send you. It is 3/4" dia but you can see it can compress to 3/8" with a little tucking with a screwdriver. Originally I was using the excess to seal around the door but have changed my mind due to it being too close to the pies. I worked great in thermal break which is isloated on the otherside of the arch. I also may have an extra tube of 2300 F refractory caulk to close up the thermal gap as well.

Wow, I do like your concrete countertops. don't look rough to me. Just picked up a wet sander for my concrete pour and scrounging around for scrap melamine. I am leaning towards the Quickcrete or Sackrete 5000. Thanks for the info.