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  • paulages
    replied
    thanks for the compliment keith. i don't know if that's true, but i do know that obsession and the power of reason can go a long way...

    about the bricks---the supplier i bought them from, had four different archway bricks in the grade i am using. numbers 1-4, four being the most drastic. the supplier, HWR (hwr.com), apparently have warehouses in several states in the U.S. if someone could find them for a reasonable price, or if cost wasn't an issue, they would be perfect to use for the entire dome. absolutely no possibility of a brick working its way loose and falling through.

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  • Keith Oertli
    replied
    Paul, great Door arch layout! Looks strong and sturdy.

    Did you cut the brick at those angles, or did they come that way?

    If they came that way, where did you find them?

    I am enjoying your progress in pictures.

    You are definitely one of those few people who are gifted with the skills to build anything well.

    K.O.

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  • paulages
    replied
    here's the brick for my door header... (18" wide, 11 1/2" high at apex)



    and here's the prototype for my dome. note the pile of shims, numbered-corresponding with each course. i would have done the whole thing with archway brick, like the last three courses, if they weren't almost twice as expensive as the regular bricks. the dome hight is about 17 1/2 inches.

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  • paulages
    replied
    yeah, jim, i think what i'll end up doing, is fireclay slip pan between the wall and floor, and under the wall and hearth. i will mud in between the bricks and behind on the first course, and use high temp. insulation caulk at the base to unsure no leaks. unless i'm misunderstanding the specs i found on these bricks, they should contract when hot, and expand back to the size i set them at at ambient temperatures. the specs were for a 2% contraction at 2500 deg. F or something like this, so i can't imagine the barely-pushing-freezing temperatures we get here in the pac NW will cause them to expand much.
    i was initially concerned about these small wedges you are describing, and was going to cut the circle to fit the walls exactly. but then i set them up and realized that the difference between a 2" brick sitting against a 132" diameter circle and a 56-agon (whatever you'd call that) was miniscule. some places it fits almost completely snug, and others there's maybe a 1/16th" gap.
    i saved all of the sludge from cutting the bricks (maybe 1/2-3/4 gal. worth), and plan to try using this as a paste to fill any gaps.

    danutsby (whatever your name is),
    if you're in the portland area, and want help, just contact me. my # is 503 247 7610. the reason i'm describing all of my mistakes and discoveries so thoroughly, is precisely to help future builders. it's all of the previous plans and posts on here that have helped me get this far. hopefully people can take what those who have built have done and improve it.

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  • ColonelCorn76
    replied
    Ah. I knew you made it round but didn't realize you were putting the walls outside the hearth. What kind of gap are you putting between the hearth bricks & the wall bricks? It seems to me that if you butt them, there's a decent chance that expansion of the hearth bricks will move the wall bricks over time (very small forces here but perhaps enough to create cracking). The advantage of the walls on top of the hearth bricks is that they can both slip. Also, your wall bricks are flat & your hearth ones are radiused now which means you'll get little wedges of space between the hearth bricks & wall bricks no? I would expect those to get filled with ash & debris over time -- might want to fill them with fireclay before the walls get too high to provide more consistent thermal properties across the whole structure.

    It's probably not a big deal (even with the walls on the hearth bricks you'd mortar down around the whole thing but the impact of the conductivity channel is more direct brick to brick). I'd go with no mortar but put the walls on a layer of fireclay/sand so at least the whole thing can slip relative to the concrete hearth consistently. I'd also still butter the mortar around them as well. (Remember the mortar here is fireclay enhanced to mimic the thermal properties of the firebrick.)

    Jim

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  • bisbys
    replied
    Round cut floor!

    Hey Paul!
    I've been in the Bahamas working for a couple of weeks and not keeping up since I posted in the newbie forum. Great work! Thanks for all the pictures and keep them coming. I'm glad it's working out, hope the dome goes as easily. I'm jealous that I'm going to have to keep watching and waiting my turn but then again-- more time to learn!

    Steve

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  • danutsb
    replied
    Paul, it looks great! I see that you are also in the Portland OR area. I am new at this, but I had in mind to build an oven for years. Any information on how to, plans, etc, would be greatly appreciated.

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  • paulages
    replied
    acually, setting them upright with the 6" exposure gives me a 3.25" rise on the first course. i really considered using archway bricks for the entire dome, but it was just too expensive. it's too bad cost is a limiting factor, cause the arch bricks would allow for a really tight dome and less mortar. oh well...
    i did buy archway bricks for the door and entryway.

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  • james
    replied
    I agree that you should mortar them to the hearh slab. You really want that part of the oven sealed. You might even want to add a little more mortar to the joint between the dome and hearth after the dome is finished.

    Don't forget to allow the the extra 2 1/2" on the first course of upright bricks -- I know you know :-), because you are setting them dome directly on the hearth (not the cooking floor).

    James

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  • paulages
    replied
    thanks jim,
    in case you didn't see the previous pictures, the reason i am asking is because i cut my floor round so that it would fit inside the walls, for better thermal values. so the bricks will be sitting on the concrete hearth, not the brick floor. still set them on the hearth dry? that is what i am leaning towards. i got a tube of refractory insulation putty, i'll probably squirt around the outside edge.

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  • ColonelCorn76
    replied
    Just stand them on the hearth bricks and mortar the outside down to the concrete hearth.

    Jim

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  • paulages
    replied
    floor reassembled...

    amidst the deafening sounds and veil of smoke from all of the 4th of july fireworks last night (you know, it always seems ironic to me how chaotic and warzone-like the fourth of july feels here), i reassembled my floor upon it's fireclay slip pan.
    it was harder than i thougth to get all of the seams perfect. i think i made my dry mortar mix a little too stiff. then again, i might have been being to anal. i know how hard it can be to scrape ashes even off of a one or two-piece stone, so i really didn't want anything for my tools to catch on. all of the seams heading into the oven (as in pizza tool direction) are perfect, but there are a few others not quite perfect. i might try taking a grinder to the seams to smooth them out perfect.
    off to the brick supplier to get my archway bricks and the rest of the dome bricks...

    question:
    should the first chain of wall bricks sit upon a slip pan also? i tried this, and it seemed less stable. maybe straight on the hearth, and just fill the bottom 1/2 in. or so of each space between them with the dry mortar mix? or should i just set them on the hearth and proceed with the regular refractory mortar?
    Last edited by paulages; 07-05-2005, 11:29 AM.

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  • paulages
    replied
    yeah, actually i just read a book on stonework (to prepare me for the veneering--something i've never done), in which there was much info on restoring old stonework. there were many cases of entire stone structures being deconstructed, mapped, numbered and photographed along the way. this and your story makes my task seem simple.
    the only tricky part is that i never really settled on a specific pattern for the brick, but rather aimed for a combination of having no continous seams crossing the direction in which tools will be entering from, and not wasting too much brick on the cut edges. i had very little waste, especially considering that some of the cutoffs were big enough to be dome pieces, and others may be keystone candidates.

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  • james
    replied
    Paul,
    This just reminded me a of story. There is a science museum in Florence along the river, where they had to replace the gas lines under the road at the entry. It's too nice a museum for an ordinary poured concrete entry, so they designed a beautiful curb, sidewalk and entry out of locally quarried cut stone. Really nice. I've been watching them put it in, one stone at a time for over a year now. Each piece of stone is cut off site somewhere, then numbered and delivered. The builders look at the plans, then find the right numbered stone, and put it in and tap it to level. Beautiful, and slow.

    Don't forget to number your bricks. :-)

    James

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  • james
    replied
    Very impressive!

    James

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