Acoma 42" Tuscan

[Acoma]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

RC, you drive me nuts! I wish I had your pace. I go at a different beat. You are finished with your 9th course, and I now completed 11 of my estimated 33 bricks to finish 7. I will finish 7 tomorrow no matter what. Sunday am I will clean up the face and top of the bricks. This will be great since I will be done with the transition as well after this.

RC, is your pace faster now after the transition point? For me, beveling both sides is time consuming. I also spent time cutting all the bricks, only to find I cut them short, so I will have to cut a couple more to keep me in the middles or close to them for the bricks below.

[RCLake]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

RC, you are a dog to get the advancement on me, but that is life. I am learning such patience that it blows me away.

Patience my as..., I want to eat pizza You just took a pause to reflect, you will be done in no time and then it will be warm. Enjoy the kids while they are growing up, it happens to fast.

[Ken524]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Robert,
Ditto what George said... Great looking kids!

Jim,
Oven Building Intervention... That's priceless. What would we do without our significant others to keep our sanity in check!?

[gjbingham]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Funny stuff Robert. An oven building intervention. Your wife probably gets the brunt of your disgusted faces and ill temperment when things aren't working out quite right. Mine sure did.

Great to see that you can refocus so easily. Building the oven should be a fun project. All your fine work will soon be covered up with insulation and Matrilite. Even if you really stick your head way in the entryway, you can only see about half the dome. All that cool brickwork becomes invisible. Only we, who are watching from afar, will know if your dome ended up a half and inch too high, or one of your bricks had a bit too much mortar on it. I know I won't think badly of you and the pizza surely won't care.

Great shots of the kids!

George.

[Acoma]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

I just love my little girls. Something special to make all of you smile as well. I know, its not about the oven, but we all need a breather to reflect on more than just working on the oven, life and family is great too.

[jcg31]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Would it be simpler to cut a template?

Just wondering, cuz I'm confused with all the drawings and angles... etc.


But I am trying to follow along!

Dave

Dave,
I thought it was just me...

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but now that you guys have brought it up...

Just as an innocent bystander, it sure looks like we are trying to make rocket science out of this stuff. From my own (limited) building experience, it seems to me that it would be nearly impossible for someone to work up precise CAD drawings for someone else's oven based on photos and measurements. There are just too many variables induced in the cutting, mortar work, and skill level. Masonry is *not* exact science (good masons only make it look that way).

Yeah, OK, my wife lines up behind you all. She has struggled for more than twentyseven years with my propensity to overengineer. I mentioned this series of posts to her - - she suggested I treat it as an intervention.

Jim

[Acoma]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Jim, don't sweat the diagrams. I need to modify each brick and course as I go.

I will keep to the goal of 20". Doing this for course 7 with the 45 degree angle of 6, I was at 21.5. I shaved the face with the wet saw by .5 to get my top face to 22.0, and I will continue to the top course with .5 lifts in the back. I am sure I will nurse along my progress to the end, but that is ok with me, it is my goal to have the best looking and functional oven I can produce for self satisfaction. If I get admiration along the way, then that means so much more to my drive to continue on this path.

As for the sides, I am finding that I need to bevel each side of the bricks to keep it looking good. I pair two bricks at a time to get semi uniform connection between them, then I move on to the next two connections (i.e., 4 and 5, then 5 and 6, etc. Once I go around to all the bricks to get this part done, I get to mortar 7.

RC, you are a dog to get the advancement on me, but that is life. I am learning such patience that it blows me away.

RT, remember the pizza experience? With recent setbacks, I am sure I would have been like, ya..I need to leave, we are hungry for real food

[Ken524]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but now that you guys have brought it up...

Just as an innocent bystander, it sure looks like we are trying to make rocket science out of this stuff. From my own (limited) building experience, it seems to me that it would be nearly impossible for someone to work up precise CAD drawings for someone else's oven based on photos and measurements. There are just too many variables induced in the cutting, mortar work, and skill level. Masonry is *not* exact science (good masons only make it look that way).

I'm certainly not knocking Robert or Jim. The collaboration is really outstanding; and the workmanship is equally outstanding (really Robert, your oven ROCKS!).

As Dave mentioned, a simple template cut to the desired interior curve would easily solve this dilemma. No grinding, trimming or removal of courses is necessary . You can still cut and set your bricks with absolute precision.

Robert, your work is great, but I hate seeing you become anguished over fractions of inches. .58"? 69.4deg? 20" dome vs. 21" dome? I'm not sure what saw you are using, but my Harbor Freight saw can barely cut a *straight* line, let alone one accurate to a hundredth of an inch.

Relax and enjoy your build. It's ok to give yourself permission to not make it PERFECT. I'm a total perfectionist and learned about halfway through that it wasn't going to be perfect no matter what I did.

Keep up the great work and have fun!!

[jcg31]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Jim, your calculations need to be modified. You have course 1 at 21", mine was 22.25. This gives me a larger radius for the dome as well. With course 6 being 22.25, I still have further to go than the first drawing. The one thing I did not do when I checked for the .5 lift in back for the remaining courses was to take a brick to the dome and verify the lift of .5 would get me to 22" for inside top of 7. I will do that this morning, then let you know.

As for grinding, I was all powdered up with brick dust at the end. I did have a mask, but this mask was history by the end. I used both a grinder and circular saw with masonry blade. The combined worked great.

Sorry, my mistake. For some reason I had it in my head you were building a 42" oven, but just to confirm, you are building a 44.5" diameter oven with a 20" ceiling?

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Dave,
I thought it was just me...

[asudavew]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Would it be simpler to cut a template?

Just wondering, cuz I'm confused with all the drawings and angles... etc.


But I am trying to follow along!

Dave

[Acoma]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Jim, your calculations need to be modified. You have course 1 at 21", mine was 22.25. This gives me a larger radius for the dome as well. With course 6 being 22.25, I still have further to go than the first drawing. The one thing I did not do when I checked for the .5 lift in back for the remaining courses was to take a brick to the dome and verify the lift of .5 would get me to 22" for inside top of 7. I will do that this morning, then let you know.

As for grinding, I was all powdered up with brick dust at the end. I did have a mask, but this mask was history by the end. I used both a grinder and circular saw with masonry blade. The combined worked great.

[gjbingham]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

Thanks Jim,
pretty much what I was thinking. That's why I'm still lost on the 20 inch planned height vs. the 21" sphere, which seems like it would be a heck of a lot easier to do.

In my hands, I'd shoot for a half inch and accept anything +/- 1/8th".

[jcg31]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

George,

Neither of these scenarios would work with the guide (contraption) I created. By design if you have a 21" radius from pivot to face of soldier course the holder will enforce the same radius from pivot to ceiling (and at every point along the way) and because it remains afixed to the pivot the slope of the course and the resultant gap are assured. So a 42" diameter oven will have a 21" ceiling.

In the case of the drawing for acoma all I did was draw what I thought was the best transitional arc from edge of the top course to 20" center of dome and then fit the remaining courses along that path with common increments in slope. In terms of measurement for placement a shim cut to size would do the trick (calipers to get that decimel number nailed) .

All that said, this is done in the CG world where you can get accuracy to whatever place you would like. Its translation to the real world is meant to be directional.

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: Acoma 42" Tuscan

You've got me curious. How the heck do you measure .45 inches accurately when you place your bricks. Perhaps I'm not awake yet or don't quite understand your brick placement contraption.

Just wondering.....
G.