First Course Of Brick

[Bob C]

I Am Finally At A Stage Where It Looks Like Something. Here Is My Question...
On Jim's Photo Essay The First Course Looks Like A Full Soldier And On The Forno Site The First Course Looks To Be A Half Brick. Is There Any Critical Difference Between The Two?

Thank You In Advance.

Bob C

[james]

Hi Bob,

Jim and I did a trial layout with the first brick full height -- which did NOT work out. The sides were high and the dome curve too steep to go up without internal forms. I measured a couple of ovens here and looked at the dimensions of our refractory ovens, and Jim re-rolled the curve using a half brick and the more gentle curve. You cannot get the dome shape you want with the full high brick in the first course.

Make sense?

James

[Bob C]

Jim,

Thank you.

It does make sense...I wanted to be sure. Could not let all that labor go to waste.


Bob C.

[ColonelCorn76]

I have to go back & reset the Yahoo photo albums. When I posted them they were in the correct order to show our initial full soldier and then how that resulted in the wrong arch structure (actually more consistent with a Napoli style oven which would only be good for pizza vs. the Tuscan style that the Pompeii is when built with the first course set as 1/2 bricks). If you look at any of the end photos you'll see that the first arch is 1/2 bricks soldier style and then the rest are 1/2 bricks flat.

Jim