Chirobuggy's 42inch oven build

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Chirobuggy's 42inch oven build

Good work Chirobuggy. What you are experiencing is normal: as minimal as we try to keep the mortar and joints, it will almost always go beyond your "dry-fit", so you just have to adjust a bit. You also asked in an earlier post about "squishing" your dome. I did it by starting to cut sharper angles at the 3rd ring and an almost as sharp angle on the 4th ring, then backing off again for the 5th, 6th,...then, you have to just cut the angle that seems right for the rest. I created a bit of "shoulder" in the dome at the 3rd/4th rings and that created the squished elliptical shape as opposed to a half-sphere.

But I believe you are doing an "egloo" style so maybe a rounder dome is what you want. But, that takes me back to my 1st point: the joints tend to "get away from you" so I would shoot for a 20" dome & I'll bet anything it ends up closer to what you want (or 21") for that reason.

Cheers, Dino

[jbruning]

Re: Chirobuggy's 42inch oven build

Looking good. I had similar issues with mortar creep. I expected it to a degree, and it wasn't too bad for the first 4 or 5 courses, then it got a bit more challenging. Still, my precutting actually worked out really well until about the 9th course, then it required a little bit more cutting. I started each course in the center of the back of the oven and worked both ways toward the front. That way most of my odd sized bricks are around toward the entrance where they won't be that visible.

You asked about the amount of mortar per course. I can't really say how much I used, I mixed multiple small batches per course and didn't really keep track. although my joints were relatively small between the bricks in a course, the wedge shaped joints between courses really use the stuff up quickly.

[chirobuggy]

Re: Chirobuggy's 42inch oven build

Thanks for the pointer Dino Still thinking about that one, but leaning away from the flattened dome because as you say, my dome will be exposed. We will see how the next few chains go.

As for today, I didn't get as much dome as I had wanted. I was ready to start mortar early but found that my brick end of the IT was not perfectly square with the rod by a 16th of an inch and it was messing with my head so I hit the garage and cut and made up another ( actually my third because the first one was done with a framing bracket i found at HD but didn't like how the metal was bent as it was not square on the inside toward the brick) Then I got down to the heatstop and it was a little harder than I thought at the point where you tie the soldier course to the inner arch brick. I had to butter all sides of the brick and try to wedge it in and still keep good mortar in the joint ( if you can understand the way I put that???)

anyway here are some picts

[chirobuggy]

Re: Chirobuggy's 42inch oven build

Thanks John I think Ill follow your lead and start placing bricks from center back to arch like you said sounds like the way to go.