Adding a reveal

[deejayoh]

Re: Adding a reveal

Rather than trying to bend angle iron, I would suggest buying a piece of plate steel and cutting the arch you want. That way, you don't have to try to shape a piece of metal into something it just doesn't want to be. 12 or 14 gauge is probably sufficient. Weld or rivet some L-brackets on the back and use masonry bolts to attach to your existing arch. Seal the gap with high temp caulk. If you really want to get fancy, you could use stainless or copper. If you want to save money, you could probably cut in 2 or 3 sections in order to get a better yield from the plate.

Also - if you do a little searching, you can probably find a place that can do water jet or plasma cutting of the metal

[david s]

Re: Adding a reveal

A steel frame sitting tightly inside the refractory,especially if it is anchored, will be the first to expand because steel is more conductive than the refractory. This is highly likely to cause cracking in the refractory. Give the steel some room to move ie. make it a loose fit.

[ATK406]

Re: Adding a reveal

If it were me, I would make the reveal with brick and mortar. If you provide enough surface area for the brick to bond to the arch it will not break loose from the force of installing the door (assuming you do not slam the door home). You will want to make sure the aspect ratio of the reveal is wider than it is thick (surface area of the reveal to arch > surface area of the reveal to door). - Say 5/4" wide by 5/8" thick - so you will lose about 1 1/2" in the width of your entry to the oven.

If you wanted to reinforce the shear plane of the reveal to arch joint, you could cut shallow grooves in a few places along the perimeter of the arch and mortar thin slices of brick into the grooves to provide a backstop for your reveal. I would make the grooves about 1/2" wide and 3/4" inch deep and fill them with slices of brick that are ~ 1/8" thinner than that. These "backstops" would extend < 1/2" from the surface of the arch and would not be visible from the outside of the oven as they would be shallower than the reveal itself.

At this point you're probably thinking "if I had $0.02 for all the advice I received on this post - I could build another oven". Anyway that's my $0.02.

Good luck and keep us posted on whatever you decide to do.
Regards,
AT

[spinal tap]

Re: Adding a reveal

Thanks everyone. While it's still something on my "to do" list for the oven, I'm putting anymore work on hold as I'd like to enjoy it for a while.

When and if I decide to tackle the reveal again, I'll definitely be back to review everyone's suggestions and update.

Thanks,
Nate