Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

A little cleaner on the outside (which you'll never see), a little bit more thermal mass (more brick less mortar, probably not needed for home use), maybe negligibly more evenly distributed heat.... all maybe's and all negligible and probably not needed. I think you've sold me. Anyone else have a contrary opinion?

[Tonyp]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

I think I have seen one or two with the top and bottom tapered but I didn't bother. It's a lot of extra cutting. Not to mention kind of a pain to cut a thin slice off the wide face of a brick with a 1/16" wet saw blade. They like to deflect out. It will also add a course or two or 3 to your build as you are decreasing the height of each course by tapering top and bottom. If you want, you could add in slivers or wedges of brick on the outside gap to take up some of the space. I just filled em with mortar..

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Am I doing something wrong? The outside gap is measuring almost 3/4" not the 3/8 suggested above...
I don't see anything that could be be wrong so I guess that's just the way it is with a 36" oven. The larger the oven the smaller that gap is.

[Greenman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

When you place the bricks you see the truth. When you look at the technical drawing you see the theory.

Believe what you see.

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Does anyone taper the wide face of the brick on the dome arch? In other words, when you look at the front of the oven, are the arch bricks sometimes triangular to even the exposed joints? Some appear to but then again, I thought some people did this to the dome bricks so I may be wrong here too.

[deejayoh]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Nate -

Good on you for trying all this out. And nice drawings too.

FWIW, I worked out all the math in my spreadsheet - it will tell you what the tilt is for each course, from which you can figure out how tall the mortar will be in the back with a little help from our friend Pythagoras

[Tonyp]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Does anyone taper the wide face of the brick on the dome arch? In other words, when you look at the front of the oven, are the arch bricks sometimes triangular to even the exposed joints? Some appear to but then again, I thought some people did this to the dome bricks so I may be wrong here too.

You can if you like. I did taper my arch bricks so they are narrower on the inside than the outside and the mortar gap is almost straight. The dome arch bricks are a little less than perfect with some slightly different sizes and mortar gap widths. By the time I made the outer arch my skills at brick cutting improved quite a bit and the bricks are much more uniform.

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Just thought I'd post my progress with the model.

[deejayoh]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Looks great! You've got the concept there for tying the dome to the arch. Very nice.

What are you using for the drawings?

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

I'm using Autodesk Inventor, the successor to AutoCAD.

[n8huntsman]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Finished the transition and moved the arch further into the dome to save space. Everything looking as it is supposed to so far?

The pieces at the top are getting quite small. How many courses do you go up till you break the pattern? There are nine courses shown and they are small enough that I could double their size, using half the number of bricks in the course, and still maintain the staggered joints. Is this what people normally do?

[Campmaki]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

I cut the bricks on my arch to get tighter joints. Having tight joints allowed me to build the vent arch in one day and pull the template out the same day. This made easy cleaning of the vents joints, no grinding and tucking to do.

[Tonyp]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Finished the transition and moved the arch further into the dome to save space. Everything looking as it is supposed to so far?

The pieces at the top are getting quite small. How many courses do you go up till you break the pattern? There are nine courses shown and they are small enough that I could double their size, using half the number of bricks in the course, and still maintain the staggered joints. Is this what people normally do?

Really up to you. I went with progressively smaller bricks through course 10 and then halved the brick count and doubled the size on course 11 out of 12 total (not counting the center plug). My oven is 40" though, so my course 11 could be roughly the same point as your course 10.

Course 12 I halved the count and doubled the size again.

[Tonyp]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

Here is a photo which shows all the courses all the way up to the plug.

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Nathan's 36" SoCal WFO build

a work of art