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After a lot of reading and lots of very kind people answering questions I feel I'm about ready to start. I have insulation coming next week (4" cal sil board) and I've built my base and poured my concrete top. Both are completely new activities to me - but so far so good.
I actually started the base from the Alan Watts book which suggests angle irons above the third layer. He uses it to build a large heat inc with decomposed granite but after reading this forum I decided against that. But the angle irons proved to be very useful for putting wood across to support the cement board when it came to pour. There was no need to build any internal forms and it makes the whole things a bit more rigid which was useful. If I had to do it again I think I'd keep that. (see pic)
My version of the Tool involved routing out the middle of two pieces of wood and putting in a long threaded rod and two hex nuts (see pic below). This hopefully will allow me to make fine adjustments as I go. I'm mounting this on a caster base and the height will change as it rotates upwards. My guess is that all I really need to worry about is that the edges of the bricks line up on the bottom. I still don't really understand how to use the tool for figuring out the cuts to make on the inner arch but I'm going to build the arch as I go so hopefully that will make more sense as it progresses. I can see the general principle but it's not clear to me how I can draw my cuts on it based on the tool . I'll keep looking at the pictures but any help would be appreciated.
I also bought a pile of H.C Muddox firebricks today, some fireclay, lime cement and 60# sand. I also purchased a 10" brick saw from HF. There was a coupon on the website that brought this down to $220. This seems to be working great but it's not large enough to taper the archway bricks in at 4.5 inches high so I'll try using my mitre saw with a 12" blade for that. Again I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I'm creating a hemispherical arch so I created a form for that based on lots of people's kind suggestions. Because I'm not very straight with a jigsaw I added a layer of Vinyl to smooth out the bumps and because this only came in enormous sheets it proved a useful thing to make my template out of for the base. I'll use this to lay out the floor bricks tomorrow for the herringbone pattern. The Muddox bricks are wobbly round the edges but they still seem to knit together ok.
Anyway. It's a start.
I actually started the base from the Alan Watts book which suggests angle irons above the third layer. He uses it to build a large heat inc with decomposed granite but after reading this forum I decided against that. But the angle irons proved to be very useful for putting wood across to support the cement board when it came to pour. There was no need to build any internal forms and it makes the whole things a bit more rigid which was useful. If I had to do it again I think I'd keep that. (see pic)
My version of the Tool involved routing out the middle of two pieces of wood and putting in a long threaded rod and two hex nuts (see pic below). This hopefully will allow me to make fine adjustments as I go. I'm mounting this on a caster base and the height will change as it rotates upwards. My guess is that all I really need to worry about is that the edges of the bricks line up on the bottom. I still don't really understand how to use the tool for figuring out the cuts to make on the inner arch but I'm going to build the arch as I go so hopefully that will make more sense as it progresses. I can see the general principle but it's not clear to me how I can draw my cuts on it based on the tool . I'll keep looking at the pictures but any help would be appreciated.
I also bought a pile of H.C Muddox firebricks today, some fireclay, lime cement and 60# sand. I also purchased a 10" brick saw from HF. There was a coupon on the website that brought this down to $220. This seems to be working great but it's not large enough to taper the archway bricks in at 4.5 inches high so I'll try using my mitre saw with a 12" blade for that. Again I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I'm creating a hemispherical arch so I created a form for that based on lots of people's kind suggestions. Because I'm not very straight with a jigsaw I added a layer of Vinyl to smooth out the bumps and because this only came in enormous sheets it proved a useful thing to make my template out of for the base. I'll use this to lay out the floor bricks tomorrow for the herringbone pattern. The Muddox bricks are wobbly round the edges but they still seem to knit together ok.
Anyway. It's a start.
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