Pdx 42" update

[Macrinehart]

I'll have to put a pin in this and come back to it next week.

[UtahBeehiver]

No sure you can reach 300 F with briquettes, try adding some small kindling, not too much though.

[david s]

A lot depends on where you are measuring the temperature. A simpler guide is the burn off of the carbon. At around 300C (~550F ) the carbon will burn away, starting at the crown and slowly moving down the dome. Do not rush the fires when you reach this stage because it indicates a very large difference in temperature and thermal expansion.
A persistent black ring around the dome base signals the presence of moisture which is holding back the temperature rise in that part of the oven.

[Macrinehart]

Question: Is it just a matter of time to hit the elusive 300F temp with a briquettes fire? Or could it be that the fire is too small to reach that temp given the size of my oven?

So far I've done 5 firings over 3 days. The fourth and 5th firings were nearly back to back. But the max temp I've recorded is 245F

Thanks!

[Macrinehart]

So far I still haven't hit 300F. My max recorde temp over the last 3 days is about 245F.

[david s]

Be careful. As all potters discover, (and only ever make this instructive mistake once), steam spalling does not occur close to water’s boiling point of 212F, but when the kiln atmosphere reads between 500-600F where the sudden expansion of moisture held in the middle of the walls of the wares (or in the case of our ovens their walls) turns to high volume steam. Try throwing some plastic sheeting over the oven to observe steam condensing on the under side.

[Macrinehart]

It's day 3 of firing. Yesterday I lit charcoal fires in the morning and evening. At my last check the dome temp was up to 240F. This morning the temp is about 135F, and that temp is pretty consistent across a large area of the dome.

Having exceeded the boiling point on the peak it seems that any residual moisture is being driven out and I'm crossing a tipping point where the oven temp can reach that 300F target.

[Macrinehart]

Fire #2 started. Still briquettes. While the rest of the wold seems to be experiencing heat domes, here in the Pacific Northwest it's cloudy and cool, I can feel the occasional mist of very light precipitation. The forecast is a slight warming trend for the next 7 days with a 20% chance of rain tomorrow but otherwise relative dry.

We got a little rain last night; I got the oven covered at the start. The internal temp of the oven was down to 90F this morning but after about 15 minutes with fire number 2 it's up to 195 at the top of the dome again.

I'll keep checking it and may start another briquette fire this evening if I don't get to the 300F today.

[UtahBeehiver]

Looking good. Slow is good, the turtle wins the cure race. This is the point where we see anxious builders damage their ovens by going to fast and too hot. One extra piece of wood during the cure can really spike the temp.

[Macrinehart]

Hello Builders! I fired my oven for the first time today! I'm using briquettes to start. It was pretty cool seeing smoke billowing out of the oven and up the chimney for the first time after such a long adventure!

My goal today was 300F, but the max temp I've measured on the dome was about 195F. After monitoring for about an hour I ran out of time so decided to seal the opening with bricks, leaving a couple openings for air and exhaust. I presume that given the thermal mass of my oven it could take a while to get up to 300 the first time. I'm off to attend the Portland Thorns vs San Diego, and will check again when I get back!

[Macrinehart]

I gave the new tier of my flue galley a week to cure, keeping it damp throughout. Today I cleaned out the sand and took out the angle grinder to level the top and enlarged the opening to allow for about a 1/8th to 1/4th-inch gap around the exterior of my single to double-wall chimney coupler. The concrete is still damp, but it's looking good! While I am still a little concerned about the seam, my sense is that once the work is complete, even if I get some cracks the chimney should still have a good draw. When I'm finished the chimney will be roof supported so I'm not to concerned about load bearing properties of the flue galley.

At this point, I believe I need to give the concrete another week before starting to fire the oven. While I wait I'm going to try and solve for the oven door.

[Macrinehart]

So today I made the first attempt to repair my flue gallery. This time I purchased a single-wall to double-wall pipe coupler. This coupler seals the interior of the two walls and it has a 3" deep and 8" diameter flang on the base which I felt would make an excellent coupler to the flue gallery.

to start I re-filled my gallery with wet sand. Then I centered this coupler on top and filled it with wet sand. Next I cleaned and dampened the already dried concrete-mix I previously molded in place. Using a concrete bonding adhesive, I made a slury of sand, concrete and adhesive per directions on the bottle and spread that around the top and exterior sides of my existing concrete-mix. Then I mixed up more of the casting home brew and used that to build up the flue gallery around the pipe coupler.

My experience at this point is that the wet concrete wanted to slowly slump. After messing around for a while trying to mitigate this without much success, I finally decided to wrap the damp concrete in plastic cling wrap with the hope that a little pressure from the outside could hold everything in place while it slowly dries. Finally, once everything was satisfactory I pulled the coupler out.

My hope is first that I get a reasonable bond between new and existing concrete. I presume if that works then once the material is set up I'll have to do a little work to get the coupler to fit. If it doesn't work, then I'll have to knock this gallery down and redo it.

[Giovanni Rossi]

Sorry, late to the party on this one. You could get an 8" chimney bottom plate, trim it to the height you need and anchor it to the top of the flue gallery. Then connect that to your transition collar with an 8" male-male union.

If you're firm on not wanting to drill into the flue gallery, you could have another go at smoothing out the enlarged hole and use a 9"-8" flue reducer and the union. But, those reducers are pricey.

[david s]

I don't think I can help you apart from explaining how I do it. My ovens are way smaller and with a double flue setup with inner 5'" and outer 6” pipes. Rather than installing the double flue pipes as one unit, I install the inner pipe as normal first, then slide the outer one over the inner one from the top, then tucking some blanket between inner and outer pipes at the top. Then securing the outer pipe with a custom made bracket to the roof supports and a Dektite seal between outer pipe and roofing.

[Macrinehart]

Hi fellow oven builders!

Once again, today, I find myself questions whether to move forward or backward and am seeking advice.

I've encountered some issues with the smoke chamber. I built this chamber with a slightly over 10 inch opening in top to accommodate my double walled pipe. Unfortunately, the pipe I purchased has an o.d. of 10.5". So after some thought, I decided, no problem, I will cut down the smoke chamber with my angle grinder to get the right sized opening. This was not a perfect solution.

While the new opening is adequate, due to unevenness of the material used to build the chamber, I now have some rather significant gaps between the outer wall of the chimney and the top of the chamber. I think the largest is about 1inch.

Perhaps I could mix another batch of cast material and patch this, but I'm not sure about that; I'm concerned that it won't bond well and lead to cracks. I don't need the patch material to support weight, but it will not have any structural support below, so frankly I'm just not sure it will work or even last that long if it does work initially.

Another complication is that the double wall chimney pipe is not sealed at the bottom. To seal the pipe, I have to purchase an adapter that converts from 8" double wall to 8" single wall, and this adapter has a tongue that will extend down into the smoke chamber by about 3". I could just cut off the tongue portion, but the manufacturer advises not to as it could impact the seal and allow creosote into interior of the double wall pipe.

So, if I go backward, then the plan is to demo the smoke chamber and rebuild it with a slightly over 8" rough opening on top. Then I attach the adapter to the pipe and it can sit on top with just the tongue extending through the opening. What I don't like about this is the lost time.

Will the first approach work? Are there other options?