A new Folly at Full Moon Farm-- build thread

[rwiegand]

After a weekend away it was time to get back to work. Just as glad I skipped the 95 deg weather yesterday.

Not sure Brunelleschi would have been proud, but it's an arch. A couple more courses to make a platform for the chimney base and the bricklaying will be done. I figured I''d let the mortar set overnight before building on top of it.

[rwiegand]

Pictures after the first two layers of insulation were applied to the dome. I added three more on top of this, extending down to the concrete slab for the rest. I ran some metal hanger strap over the dome to hold everything in place, though it doesn't seem inclined to move. Construction of the "little house" out of steel studs is underway. What a pain (literally and figuratively) they are to work with. Despite gloves I have multiple cuts, and the methods I've come up with for attaching rafters to the walls seem pretty hokey. I have no good ideas for how you attach a facia board to the ends of the steel rafters.

The oven is ready for preliminary fires, with the temperature at 95 I didn't particularly feel like adding to the heat today. I always pick the best days to do insulation projects!

[purplehaze]

I removed my facia board and took a photo of how I did it. Its not pretty but it works

[rwiegand]

Big day today, finished up making most of my steel frame parts and got the house frame erected. To celebrate I made a fire in the oven! Kept it very small, the highest temp I saw with my nifty infrared thermometer gun was 230. It's still quite warm inside four hours later, so I guess that's a good sign. When the fire was slightly larger he chimney drew very well, as it burned down and got smokier there was quite abit of smoke coming out the front, as well as up the chimney. I'll begin the conditioning fires in earnest now. I need to make the front and back eaves tomorrow and then I can get some roof decking on. I decided to go with fire rated plywood for the roof deck to make nailing shingles easier. I ordered another section of stove pipe to get me to the required 2' over the roof.

[Lburou]

Very clean work! A great job. Congratulations on your first fire!

[rwiegand]

Thanks! I've stuck an electric heater in there to see how that does for a couple of days. If it ever cools off a bit I'll go back to lighting fires.

[rwiegand]

Didn't quite get the roof sheathing on today, but made progress. Fabricated the gable overhangs yesterday and got them attached, built the chimney chase and got it fixed in position, not quite done, as I couldn't reach the back side to put the screws in. I'll be able to lean a ladder up that side when I get the roof sheathing attached. The screws I got to attach the sheathing are way too prone to strip out. I've had much better success using a construction screw in a pre-drilled hole than the fancy (and expensive) screws that are sold for the purpose.

Volunteer day at the museum tomorrow, so probably won't get anything done. Friday we'll drive up to Vermont to look for roofing slate.

[UtahBeehiver]

Wow, that is quite a "man cave/wood working shop" you have there. Steel work is looking good.

[rwiegand]

Yes, I love my shop! It's a 36 ft square barn from 1910 that I rescued -- major hole in the roof when we bought the place, another couple of years and it would have been compost. Having an above ground shop is one of life's great pleasures.

[rwiegand]

Electric heater seems to be doing its thing-- the oven was a uniform 165 deg last night, this morning it is 175. I'm liking that the dome and floor all are within a degree of each other. I just hope the heater doesn't decide to melt! I'm hoping this will bake a lot of the water out. Thought about using a gas burner, but they produce a ton of water as they burn, and that seemed as though it might be counterproductive inside the oven.

[fox]

looks great!
I like to start off the drying process with BBQ bricketts suspended on a cake cooling tray or similar to keep the coals off the floor.
If I am around all day, I will keep that going all day and then start adding sticks on top of the coals to get a bit of flame on the second day.
Third day I just use wood.
I might be over cautious but it takes me around a week of fires before I have built the fires up too one hour with a big fire.
Then the next day I am ready to max out with a two hour fire.
Good luck.
My first oven build (I have built four) has only one hairline 6” crack after around 60-70 fires.

[rwiegand]

At this point I'd love to finish one oven, much less four! I'm now in dread that someone will ask me to make one for them and I'll have to tell them that even at minimum wage I'd have to charge $25K!

[WarEagle90]

I almost forgot you were building an oven. I got caught up with the picture of your shop That looks to be one fine place to spend a Saturday afternoon or even a whole weekend. The oven looks great and the enclosure is coming along nicely. The slate roof will be a nice finishing touch to the build.

[rwiegand]

The great thing about being retired is that every day is Saturday!

I left the electric heater in the oven while we went to VT, the temp was up to 275 last night when we got back. Ready to switch over to burning some wood now I think.

The slate mission was a total success, pictures to follow. Tomorrow's task is going to be sourcing some copper flashing and drip edge.

[rwiegand]

Roof going on today. I really like it! A few conniptions from getting the flashing bent and soldered, but I think it will work out.

I've also been continuing with conditioning fires. Temps have been pushing up to 650+, the dome almost cleared after a few hours the with the last fire. I'm perilously close to being able to make a pizza.