32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Thanks Calisdad and Dave!!

I will go slow on the curing. I know the plans say to build fires to keep the temp at 300 degrees for quite a long time. I'm going to go a bit slower than that and build small fires every evening for at least a week. I had a massive oak tree fall down on my property a fews years ago - so I have enough firewood to last a very long time!

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Congrats on the first fires. That is alot of "good" wood!

[K79]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

congrats on the fire !! Looks great.

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Thanks K79!

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

REINFORCING

well, all this discussion about reinforcing got me a bit spooked.

So I decided to add a reinforcing strap around the soldier bricks.

I am 99% certain that this will serve no useful purpose at all. But it makes me feel a bit better that it is there! And it was easy and cheap because I had most of the parts.

Neil

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

FIRST DOUGH!!!

I am intentionally not calling this post "First Pizza" because as you can see this is far from being a Pizza.

But this is now my 5th curing fire and I decided to throw in some Pizza dough brushed with Garlic and Olive oil and some dried Romano cheese just because I couldn't resist any longer!

Oven was not nearly hot enough (it is a curing fire) and it charred a bit... but... damn it tasted good!!

Neil

[Calisdad]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Awesome- and it looks like your oven will be ready for the next quake. :-)

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

CRACKS

well it seems that everyone eventually has crack stories so I guess it's my turn.

I have made a total of 8 curing fires, one every night for the last 8 days. The last few days I have been raising the temperature a bit.

I have some cracks in the joints at the sides of the outer arch and also in the dome. None of them are too big. I am going to leave the dome ones for now but I will chip some mortar out of the arch cracks and refill them.

The arch seems solid and there is still plenty of mortar holding the arch in place.

Comments welcome

Neil

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Well I made quite a lot of progress this weekend - at least in my opinion I did!

I attached the Stainless Steel Duravent Vent plate. I used 1/4 inch concrete anchors which seemed to work well. I did not torque them down too hard as I don't want to risk breaking the bricks. I set the plate at an angle so that I could get the anchor bolts as close to the center of the bricks as possible (less chance of cracking was my reasoning)

I also completed the outer decorative arch and placed a thermal break between the outer arch and the decorative arch. The gap will get filled with that high temperature rope stuff.

I made a raised keystone out of firebrick to add some decoration to all of the antique brick.

Lastly (but not least in terms of effort!) I built my rear concrete block walls which will serve to hold up the brick walls at the back of the preparation surfaces on either side of the oven.

This wall is also going to shield us a bit from the sun and block some of the less attractive parts of the garden (the chicken coup is back there!)

Neil

[Greenman]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

CRACKS

well it seems that everyone eventually has crack stories so I guess it's my turn.

I have made a total of 8 curing fires, one every night for the last 8 days. The last few days I have been raising the temperature a bit.

I have some cracks in the joints at the sides of the outer arch and also in the dome. None of them are too big. I am going to leave the dome ones for now but I will chip some mortar out of the arch cracks and refill them.

The arch seems solid and there is still plenty of mortar holding the arch in place.

Comments welcome

Neil

Minor cracks seem to be normal. No cracks at all seems to be the exception to the rule. Cracks of this magnitude don't seem to be terminal issues and seem to settle as the oven cures. Probably healthy to have somewhere that absorbs the expansion/contraction (that we know about).

The builders who cover the dome with insulation before fires will never know what is under that unless the cracks come through to the inside.

[fabby]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Don't worry about the cracks. Unless you are a plumber.

I liked the look of your cooked dough. Lots of bubbles. What recipe did you use for the dough?

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

hi Fabby

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this dough is straight out of the bag from Whole Foods! I've never tried it before but a friend recommended it one night when we didn't have time to make our own. At $1.29- a bag it's hard to complain about it!

Neil

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

CLEARING THE DOME...

I am now up to about my 11th curing fire and every day I increase the temperature a bit more. For the last few days my keystone and a few surrounding bricks turned white, and then last night the upper 4 courses "cleared" I've been reading about "clearing the dome" for quite a while now - It's great to see it start to happen!

Tonight I may see if I can clear a few more rows!

Neil

[K79]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

By clear do you mean turning white? I can't wait to start mine. I need to find a few threads on this and start reading up... I've been so caught up in the build aspect.

[boerwarrior]

Re: 32 Inch Pompeii in Northern California

Hi K79, yes, turning white. Actually for most of it the black soot actually disappears completely and I can clearly see the yellow fire brick. But in some parts there is what looks like a fine white ash.

It is amazing how quickly you move from looking at "build" threads to looking at firing and cooking threads. Quite a refreshing change actually. You'll see!