42" Pompeii construction in Adelaide

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day All and Happy New Year,
Thanks Mark, and yes I agree with you on that one.
I've mostly sorted my entry and vent arch design. After trolling the forum for a few hours I do have a couple of questions where I'm a little unsure.
In photo no 1 I've laid out what will be the entry bricks, one and a half bricks long starting at the bottom. Towards the top I'll open out for the vent (the yellow arrow indicates) Its a 42 inch oven and I'm going for an 8 inch flue (about 49 sq inch) and the vent will be around 80 sq inch initially reducing from rectangle to round and about 50 sq inch. Once I'm creating the opening I won't have a very thick brick at the front of the vent, indicated by the green arrow, around 2 and 3/4 inch deep ( fore/aft length). So it will be like photo no 2 and the blue arrow. Is there a depth of that part of the vent arch ( green and blue arrows) that anyone believes would be too narrow?
My second question relates to laying a decorative fascia brick on the front of the vent arch. I may not be able to use a full brick and I'm concerned if I simply mortar a fascia on the front (possibly half brick thickness) It would separate from the vent arch eventually cracking the mortar and becoming loose. Have you laid, or seen a fascia laid on the front of the arch? How did it go and how did you do it??
Thanks in advance for any info regarding these questions, the terrific assistance often flows and is greatly appreciated.
Regards

[P3 Stoaker]

Just looking at my questions in previous post I probably should have added a little more info. The bricks, and therefore weight on top of the vent arch will not be excessive. I plan to extend the brickwork up far enough to create a flat surface for a flue base plate. I have seen many ovens built this way on the forum but its a little difficult to determine exactly what others have done.
Thanks in advance.

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day All,
I'm planning on having a decorative face brick on the front of my vent arch. Did you do the same ???
I'm concerned that simply mortaring it on the front may not be all that strong a hold and and slight movement or cracking of the mortar for any reason could allow the face brick to become loose. I've thought of liquid nails or even silicone which would allow some movement.
If you did the same I'd really appreciate thought/comments on how you did it and what worked or didn't.
Many thanks
Greg

[MarkJerling]

My decorative arch is a self supporting brick arch. I wanted it separate to allow it to move different from the door arch. It carries no weight other than itself and the outer plaster layer.

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day Mark, thanks for the reply. Do you mean that your decorative arch is separate to the vent arch? The photo below isn't the best but I think it provides the picture. I plan to use one and half bricks for the vent arch, ( trial piece cut from a normal brick as seen in the photo), overlapping or sitting over the dome arch. I'll open that at the top for the vent. The red brick (in photo) will be cut to size and be the decorative arch.
Its how to lay, or attach, or not that red decorative row that I'm wondering about as I haven't found much info on how others went about this. Were you happy with what you did? What methods have you seen used?
Kind Regards
Greg

[NCMan]

I installed ceramic fiber tape to not only provide a thermal break, but to also to serve as a control joint between the vent arch and the dome. I also then installed a control joint between the vent arch and the front arch. I simply later used a high temp sealant to seal it all up. Works like a charm, especially as a thermal break.

[MarkJerling]

G'day Mark, thanks for the reply. Do you mean that your decorative arch is separate to the vent arch? The photo below isn't the best but I think it provides the picture. I plan to use one and half bricks for the vent arch, ( trial piece cut from a normal brick as seen in the photo), overlapping or sitting over the dome arch. I'll open that at the top for the vent. The red brick (in photo) will be cut to size and be the decorative arch.
Its how to lay, or attach, or not that red decorative row that I'm wondering about as I haven't found much info on how others went about this. Were you happy with what you did? What methods have you seen used?
Kind Regards
Greg

Hi Greg

Yes, My decorative arch is built from ordinary brick and independent from the firebrick door arch and outer door arch. In my case, the whole set-up is quite deep and works for me while others say a deep door arch is hard to work with and needs long handled tools. I find that I can reach every part of the oven, admittedly with longer tools, but I needed a deep arch because of my extremely thick insulation layers.

I should have done a better thermal break, like you, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

Kind regards,
Mark

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day All,
NCMan and Mark, I appreciate your feedback, many thanks. For info I plan on using fibreglass tape and rope to seal between the dome arch and the vent arch, as can be seen in the photo of my dodgy drawing which shows the dome, dome arch and the yet to be installed vent arch. I intend to cut the vent arch bricks where they over lap the dome arch at an angle, as shown by the green line. I'll cut to suit the thickness of a rope seal, the red circle and use tape, yellow line. All will be sealed up with high temp silicone.
Whilst I'm reasonably happy With the above plan I'm still a little unsure how I'll join the decorative red face brick to the rest of the vent arch. I'm now thinking to grind groves in both faces and mortar as one normally would, the groves helping the mortar to stick thereby keep it all together? Comments/feedback welcomed !!
Kind Regards
Greg

[NCMan]

Not sure if you're doing an enclosure or not, but here's a shot of my control joint I did between the vent arch and the face. Of course, I caulked it before enclosing (inside and out) and it won't be seen. It was done more as a control joint and not as much of a thermal break, since I already had one on the inner arch.

https://community.fornobravo.com/fil...photoid=305774

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day All,
NCMan, many thanks for the info, looks great, i did see that in your build and was most impressed with the base work, rock work and the Sierra Nevada beers, that's just about the best beer in the world. I lived in Rockwall, just out of Dallas for 3 or 4 months a few years ago and that was the beer of choice. Pity it's so expensive here in Oz.
It might be slow but I am progressing when I can around the hot weather, in excess of 110 deg F here today and hot overnight as well.
The vent arch is progressing thanks to many idea's from other posts, a huge thanks to all that post their info and pictures and at the risk of forgetting some-one, many thanks to Russell, JRPizza, David s, Mark Jerling, Tom (greenviews), Baza and Mongota.
Instead of cutting the angle as mentioned 2 posts ago I decided a groove for the rope like Mongota did was the go. Not as neat though, all hand cut with a 5 inch, but should do the job. I went with a bead of silicone (all high temp) either side of the rope (pic 2), to the left sealing brick to brick and a bead along the tape around the corner. Hopefully the combo will seal things up.
I was concerned about brick movement and therefore grooved each brick which I hope will mean even when the hairline cracks appear the tendency to move might be minimised. Again rough as all hand cut but probably better to hold than if nice and uniform. Did you do something similar or have you seen it done before? I figure it can't hurt for a few extra blades ??
I'll put the red decorative arch on the front of this vent arch and really only need to decide if I mortar joint it together or silicone like NCMan did, bearing in mind the length of my decorative arch will only be about 70mm (little under 3 inch) so not so much surface area hence the desire to attach to the rest of the vent. 3 rows to go and I'll be opening it up to extend vertically so that should get interesting !!
Regards to all.

[UtahBeehiver]

Looking good as always. Nice solution on thermal break.

[P3 Stoaker]

Thanks Russell, seems to be going OK.
The big thing I noticed with this arch was I positioned the front face of the form accurately so able to lay the bricks flush with the form. I did read about doing this but failed to realise how significant the advantage would be when laying the inner arch. This time it has made getting the front flush nice and easy and well worth incorporating in the plan.
Regards

[P3 Stoaker]

G'day All, thought I'd post a few picks as the pics others have posted have been a great help throughout planning each stage of my build. Going slow but still progressing.
Regards

[UtahBeehiver]

Sure got a lot of fancy complex cuts. Looks great, the turtle wins the race with these ovens.

[P3 Stoaker]

Gday all. Has anyone ever considered the weight of the bricks added on top of the entry arch so as to form part of the fluing? Initially I planned to cut curves to form a flat top, which I’ll still do but I was going with one more layer on that before installing the metal flue. I haven’t actually weighed the bricks but that could add to nearly 50 kg, or even more around 110 lbs.
Appreciate any thoughts or experiences.
Regards
Greg.