42" In South GA

[MarkJerling]

Looking very tidy edonovan !

[edonovan]

Late reply, I bet UtahBeehiver...snow came a bit late so they were more then ready for those storms...We got there right as a good storm came through for the week. :-)

Progress...we are getting there people...I am seeing the light!!!

[UtahBeehiver]

I just got done shoveling 12" of heavy snow off my driveway and the mountains got 19" last night and 20" earlier in the week so it has been dumping the past week. The powder hounds are barking but the Snowbird is on avalanche hold this morning.

Just let the IT do the work and only adjust it when necessary to keep alignment and angles. Spend you labor resources for other stuff.

[edonovan]

Is there a particular reason you are lowering the dome height from 21" to 20", it really does not make it a low dome oven and it means a lot if extra work. I agree with Mark that the 1" will not make any difference visually or operationally all said and done.

Honestly no...I think I read in someone's build that they went 42" and 20" high...after looking a little bit for where I may have seen that...I feel like I may have made it up in my head. ...all good to me not have to adjust my IT...21" high dome it is!!

P.S UtahBeehiver Hope you are doing ok with the storm and just able to enjoyi it.

[edonovan]

Thank you MarkJerling ....not crumbly at all.

[MarkJerling]

I think the dark band ones usually indicate higher baking temperatures and therefore greater hardness. I don't believe that the others should be in any way inferior, but make sure they're not crumbly.

[edonovan]

Gluing them down?

Figure of speech, just want to make sure I don’t have a bad batch of brick before finishing the top half of my oven.

[NCMan]

Gluing them down?

[edonovan]

So what I’m hearing is keep my IT as is and go with the 21” dome height?

second question…had to pick up some extra brick due to all my “mistakes”… I call them learning curves…same place and same manufacture (Whittaker Greer)…old brick on right, new brick on left…should I be concerned there is an absent darker band in the middle? Could this have been a not as pressed batch? Not sure if I could really do much about it but before I start gluing em down figured I would ask.
Thanks again everyone!!

P.S I envy you guys in the mountains right about now!

[MarkJerling]

.... and it means a lot if extra work. I agree with Mark that the 1" will not make any difference visually or operationally all said and done.

Yup, a heck of a lot of work for no gain. I don't understand why one would want to do it.

[UtahBeehiver]

Is there a particular reason you are lowering the dome height from 21" to 20", it really does not make it a low dome oven and it means a lot if extra work. I agree with Mark that the 1" will not make any difference visually or operationally all said and done.

[MarkJerling]

As a complete aside...I got a message from someone maybe a year or two ago who felt their perfect 21" dome radius was too high at the apex. He was going to tear it apart and rebuild to lower the height by an inch.

I can't see that one inch would make any difference to the practical use of the oven, heat retention, etc. And it would be hardly visible.

[mongota]

To transition from a 21" radius to a 20" dome height, I would have been reducing the IT much earlier in the build, well prior to covering the arch. You can gauge how many more courses you have and divide the height you need to lose by the courses remaining and then reduce the IT by that much per course. But if you need to lose 1" over your remaining (for example) six courses that might be a bit much with regards to the course-to-course transition. The top of your dome might actually flatten out a bit too much. You could hold a flexible batten over the top of your dome to see how it looks visually. It can still work for sure. But you'll likely have to manipulate/rotate the bricks as you set them to avoid significant stair-stepping or lippage between courses.

The thing is...it can ALL work. You just make it happen as best as you can.

As far as transitioning to smaller bricks, I went from half-brick to third-bricks. I might have transiitoned from third-brick to quarter-bricks in the course right before setting the plug.

As a complete aside...I got a message from someone maybe a year or two ago who felt their perfect 21" dome radius was too high at the apex. He was going to tear it apart and rebuild to lower the height by an inch. I offered the idea of pulling the floor brick and "raising the floor" with an inch layer of ceramic fiber board insulation. Then resetting the floor brick on top of that. Obviously his floor brick was cut to fit inside the dome. The only caution I offered was with regards to oven access through the arch, was that his arch access would be reduced by an inch in height. He did that modification and in his feedback he said the reduced arch height opening was not an issue with regards to oven access.

[NCMan]

Lookin' good!!

[edonovan]

Whoa...well holidays are here and work has been....moving....kind of slowly...but moving none-the-less. Thank you everyone again for all the words of encouragement, tips and tricks. Feeling SO much better about getting past that hurdle. A couple questions...
1) I have been planning on a 20" high dome (42" diameter oven) and was wondering when I start creeping my IT back? Is is once I clear the arch, just start pushing it back each layer?
2) As the layers start to not take a lot of full 1/2 bricks, do most just start cutting the 1/2 brick in half? (the 4.5" lengthwise) ....this is what has been working for me to correct some joints lining up...still couldn't totally avoid it, but making corrections as needed as best I can.