Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Thanks for the info, will try your idea. One batch, seems a little crumbly the other side had a little more water and seems to set better. I'm going to let sit overnight and see what happens.

[mikku]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Glad to see you have the weather with you and can start. Looking at the texture of your pericrete, to me it looks a bit dry. I add enough water just to the point when you squeeze it, no water comes out. You should be able to form it into a ball by squeezing and it should retain its shape. Right now, it probably feels really crumbly to you. A sample I made and put into a plastic bag later was also crumbly when the cement set, but the wetter stuff when squeezed into a ball formed a hard ball when set.

That is just my observation on a "one-time build", others may have some other ideas. Your oven will take on a whole new appearance with this newest covering!

[Bookemdanno]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Lookin' good Utah!!!

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Started Pcrete dome layer today, suppose to have a sunny weekend. Used a 5:1 ratio, a little learning curve to get the right water ratio, pressure to apply, etc. Best thing was the curved trowel that I made at the suggestion on Gulf and Bookemdanno. Just did one row and will let sit for a while so I don't collapse layer when installing next one. Template gives me a gauge for keeping the right shape and thickness but not using it to screed.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Typical April weather, rain and cold so doing some more secondary WFO work. Laid out the door for the oven, will use leftover 1.5" CF blanket as insulation sandwiched and enclosed in SS. Building door from a 316 medical cabinet door that was given to me. Time to get the plasma cutter out.

[david s]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

As the build proceeds, you can add additional material to smooth the curvature out to the desired shape. You already have a good insulation base, so you could easily work with a 5:1 mixture. That sets hard like a rock overnight. That could be followed with a render coat suitable to use drill in anchors for your copper cladding.

Using a 5:1 mix fairly drastically reduces the insulation value of the vermicrete. I don't have the figures to hand, but the more cement you add the poorer the insulation becomes. I doubt whether a 5:1 mix would be strong enough to to hold any fixings anyway.

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Not my idea, stole from Niel of Australia. It is 316 SS but I am sure 304 would work as well. It is a piece of cut off surplus so not sure on gauge but it is about an 1/8" (10 gauge) thick. You can buy commercially but I can say I made it myself. Hang in there on your build, been following it closely. Pretty soon you will be making pizzas for the 9 in your tribe.

[mikku]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Hello from Japan,
When you start working with your pericrete, try making softball sized balls as building blocks. I did this over the weekend and it seemed to work fine. Originally, I was just placing material with one hand and using a rubber float to hold the shape of the insulation. This time, I picked up the pericrete and squeezed it into a ball before placing it. A lot of balls makes the build go a little quicker.

As the build proceeds, you can add additional material to smooth the curvature out to the desired shape. You already have a good insulation base, so you could easily work with a 5:1 mixture. That sets hard like a rock overnight. That could be followed with a render coat suitable to use drill in anchors for your copper cladding.

Sorry to hear WX in Utah is still chilly! Our spring is slow but the cherry blossums are pretty much in bloom right now and no need for a wood stove anymore this season.

BTW, great looking pizza cutter!

[fabby]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

That's a great idea on a cutter. What guage of stainless or aluminum did you use?

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Hey Bookem,

Weather here is also $#%, blue tarped everything again, snowed earlier this week. Since I cannot work on the oven I finished my rocking pizza cutter. Also made a curved trowel like you suggested, similar to your's and Gulf'sl for the p-crete. So when the weather permits I am in business.

[Bookemdanno]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Weather been pretty crepe over here, and my rendering has suffered. I've kept it covered up until the other day. I've got a re-rend to do. Major frost damage.
I'll bare myself to all when i pluck up the courage to get some photos taken.

[Bookemdanno]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Hey Russ, you're oven'd ready for the space race!

Good luck with the next bit! It's bloody frustrating! I too used a similar rotating guide, but i also made a curved trowel from some plywood.
Make it to the required radius, and you can use it to hold the mix against the dome whilst tamping from above to consolidate.

Have fun!

[Jimney]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Layout the floor, made an IT(based on jcg31's model) and cut the floor.

Clofgreen - thanks for the feedback on the brick temperatures, pies look great.

Off to making the form for the inner arch, going to use Karanga Dude and GianniF's example of a taper arch as my guidance for my build.

Russell

Is there a reason why you could not install them diagonally using the same pattern and rotating 45 degrees?

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

I didn't count the holes just did a quick area calculation of the dome A= 4 * pi * r2 /2 to get square inches. Crazy number of holes but in reality only took a little over an hour to do.

David, I had to at least push the outer blanket layer (two 1.5" layers installed) since there was foil on both sides of the outer blanket, but I probably went into the inner layer as well. It is what it is.

CN, I am really not expert on whether to leave the foil on or not. I ended up deferring to those who used foil before me and ended up following there recommendations, sort of. I had the blankets on and chickened wired so a little late to take foil off so I opted to perforate foil instead.

[david s]

Re: Wood Fired Beehive in Utah

Hope you only punctured the foil. You don't really want to make holes in the blanket too. The reason i suggested some nails in the wood is that you can make 4 or so holes at one time and adjust the depth so they only penetrate the foil.
Probably won't make that much difference.