36" pompeii in WI in the winter

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Aaron,

To give the warm fuzzies, here a picture of a brick I used in my build. Mine were stored in open storage for several years and I have had no issues. If you are really concerned, when you cut the brick in half for your dome you can place the cut side in. As for the floor, I still think you are okay. Check some of the brick that came from the inner portion of the pallet and if they are the same I would say that is the characteristic of the this particular brick. If they are better, save the better faced ones for the floor and use the others for the dome. IMO

Ahh, now I feel better.

Creative on splitting the CaSi..........I can't tell for sure from the pics but the center on the nut on the angle iron on your IT needs to be the center of you brick, ie 2.5" brick, center should be 1.25". Also take a grinder and taper the botton of the angle iron at 45 degrees, it will help with moving the IT after the brick is placed. Good luck

It is in the center. Thanks for the tip on the 45.

Got the floor and some half bricks cut. Will post pics later.


Aaron

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Got the hearth and soldier course bricks cut and laid out. Now I'm waiting for a friend who has some experience laying brick to come help me get started with the mortaring. This is getting exciting!

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Up we go! I can see that it's going to be increasingly hard to keep the dome bricks from sliding. So far so good though. Getting the mortar to the right thickness is key.

I'm not getting as fussy with tapering the bricks like a lot of people do. I'm simply cutting the bricks in half on an angle. The arch bricks take a little more work, but they aren't turning out too bad.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Here is a quick sketch of what I'm aiming for. I'm not sure on the colors yet.

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

I got to looking at your build. How many yards of concrete did it take to fill your base? What kind of fork lift does your friend have? I fear that you are going to exceed the lifting abilities of your fork lift and get stuck with a finished oven in your garage. Hope I'm wrong.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

I got to looking at your build. How many yards of concrete did it take to fill your base? What kind of fork lift does your friend have? I fear that you are going to exceed the lifting abilities of your fork lift and get stuck with a finished oven in your garage. Hope I'm wrong.

I hope you are wrong too. The forklift is rated at 9000 lbs.. There is 1.37yds. in the base which comes in just under 5000lbs.. 200 firebrick will be about 1600 lbs., and mortar 180lbs., which brings it to 6780lbs.. I'm not sure how much everything else will weigh, but I'm guessing the overall weight will be somewhere around 7500. At the most 8000lbs..

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

This forklift was rated at 6000#, with the oven estimated at 2800#. Note the rating is at the lowest point with the boom retracted. We loaded it, but it got sketchy.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

This forklift was rated at 6000#, with the oven estimated at 2800#. Note the rating is at the lowest point with the boom retracted. We loaded it, but it got sketchy.

By extending that boom you change the center of gravity significantly. The the length at which you had it extended to load it on the trailer probably dropped the rating to 2000#.

Equipment is generally underrated. For example, we lifted the base (5000#) off of the forms with a small telehandler rated at 4000#. We had to keep the boom all the way in, but it did it. The forklift I will use doesn't have an extendable boom and would probably lift 10000# though it would probably be unsafe to lift it very high.

If all else fails there is a guy a half mile down the road that runs a sawmill with a large front end loader. We've had him move stuff before and I'm sure I could get him to help me out.

So, in short.......I'm not worried about it.

Aaron

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Yeah, it won't be a problem. I am curious though, being a concrete guy, why you didn't go for a high strength/lightweight mix at 2-3" thickness.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Yeah, it won't be a problem. I am curious though, being a concrete guy, why you didn't go for a high strength/lightweight mix at 2-3" thickness.

Oddly enough, the reason I didn't go for the high strength idea is because I am a concrete guy. We had a small job nearby for which the readymix plant's 3 yd minimum would've been too much. By using the extra for the base we were able to get some cheap concrete. High strength concrete is more expensive, and since I had access to heavy equipment I didn't worry about it.

After taking the forms of and seeing how sturdy things are, I'm thinking that 3.5", or maybe even 3" would work for the side walls with regular ready-mix. Providing, of course, that there is enough rebar, and that all the air bubbles get vibrated out. Getting a vibrator in that narrow of a wall with rebar can pose problems. We got ours stuck down in the bottom as it was, and ended up cutting a hole in the wall form too lose it.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

I was thinking more along the lines of GFRC with maybe pencil rod at a few points. BUYING 10,000 PSI compressive, high flexural strength lightweight concrete is expensive, but mixing it yourself isn't.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

I was thinking more along the lines of GFRC with maybe pencil rod at a few points. BUYING 10,000 PSI compressive, high flexural strength lightweight concrete is expensive, but mixing it yourself isn't.

I don't have any experience with GFRC (we don't do that kind of concrete work) and honestly didn't think much about such an option. It probably would be neat to do something like that though. Maybe on my next build

I am thinking of pouring a counter-top on the front of the oven. Mixing my own GFRC sound interesting. Could you give me (or point me to) some info on the subject?

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Thanks for the response. Your numbers changed a bit from an earlier post. My eye thought you had more then a cubic yard. I'm not a concrete guy but I do own a construction company so I have my fingers in all the trades.

Good to know that if the 9000 lb won't get the job done you have a backup with the sawmill.

Good luck and it's looking great. I'll go back to lurking now.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

Good luck and it's looking great. I'll go back to lurking now.

Thanks. Here's a cheesy cellphone pic of what I have done so far.(I'll post better ones later) I finished the arch and the fifth course. I have to go back to work for a few days now so the mortar in the arch should have time to dry before I pull the form out. It's only 48-50 degrees F in the shop so the mortar dries somewhat sluggishly. It's great for strength and minimizing shrinkage cracks but I have to be careful not to bump things too much.

[AaronTheGeek]

Re: 36" pompeii in WI in the winter

We're up to the 7th course now. It has a little dip going over the arch that I will try to correct in the next course. I will be switching from 1/2 bricks to 1/3 bricks for the 8th course. So far I have been doing just one cut for each brick with good success. I found I can even do compound angles that way. One side of the brick works for one course going one way, and the other side works for the next course going the other way. The angle changes slightly from course to course but, so far, by changing my cut every two courses it's worked well enough.

My brother thought up a simple and effective forming solution that works with an IT. It helps out a lot. I'll try to post some pics of it later today.