Treehouse Pizza

[RandyJ]

I forgot to mention that I also stopped by a drywall supplier yesterday and picked up some 18 gage steel studs. I wanted to go with some heavier duty ones because I plan to pour a counter on top that is 2" to 3" thick. I feel like the thinner stuff available at home depot and menards are just not strong enough to hold that much weight and I don't want to worry about them collapsing.

Randy

[RandyJ]

I got a bit more work done today. I finished row 8 and put 2 bricks on to row 9 to finish up the bucket of mortar that I had mixed up. With the new sticks I cut today I am pretty sure I could easily hammer out row 9 without much issue. If you count the time it took to un tarp the oven and get everything I needed out I had about 2 hrs involved to get this row done. I may need to start making smaller batches of mortar but so far what I have been doing has been working well. I can fully set about 8 bricks and back fill all the gaps. I have been getting each batch done in 25 minutes or so. It is starting to get pretty thick by then too. I decided to walk with my wife to get my son from daycare this afternoon and ended up stopping to visit some friends in the neighborhood. If I had just stayed home I am almost positive I could have finished row 9 as well. Oh well I guess I need to take a break every now and then too.

Randy

[Giovanni Rossi]

RandyJ , you're not wrong. Physics tells us that a complete ring should hold steady when the form is removed. Even though I was using the supplied stagger bricks, I had been cutting a brick here and there so I could stagger the joints properly. I knew I could never get a tight enough joint using an angle grinder to keep the ring in place. However, even without that consideration, row 10 and above were so vertical, I doubt even a tight fit would have held them in place.

[RandyJ]

Hey Giovanni Rossi I may be wrong but there should be no reason one could not lay a ring of bricks and the once set up pull the form and clean so you are then ready to reinstall the form and do the next ring. I may be missing something but once laid each ring should be self supported. For sure once the mortar begins to set up. If anyone sees a flaw in my thinking please let me know. Otherwise I will probably plan on doing it this way.

Randy

[Giovanni Rossi]

Randy, I tried playing with the brick saturation, but it didn't seem to matter. As you would guess, the slipping really became an issue after row 8. I didn't use the fiberglass form because I wanted to clean mortar from the inside of the dome and I knew as soon as I dropped the form the bricks would move. Though It really is an exercise to do that bc no one will ever look at the top of the dome.

You're making great progress toward with your deadline!

[RandyJ]

Hey david s thanks for the tip. I have been moving in that direction and it has been helping. If I follow the kit direction I only have one more ro to go before I put the fiberglass form in and just lay the bricks on that.

I just finished the 7th row of bricks today and that cleared the top of the door. I am pretty sure that I avoided the droop on this build. I know that I had problems with that on my last oven. My sticks that I have been using to prop bricks may be to short to keep using so I am not entirely sure what I will do next. Maybe I can just use a bit of scrap lumber to shim them up a bit so they can reach.

I am super excited to be getting close to having the dome built. But also a bit sad. I have really ripped through it and if things go how i am thinking i will finish it by next weekend, but it is supposed to rain a lot here in the next week. So we shall see how this all goes.

Randy

[david s]

It is not only the consistency of the mortar that’s important, but also how wet the bricks are. It is possible that your bricks are too wet and this is causing the slippage. Bricks should be moist but not wet. If the bricks are fully saturated they will not be able to draw moisture from the mortar which creates the good adhesion required Additionally, if there is a film of water over the brick surface it can interfere with the bond. Play with the combination of mortar consistency and brick moisture content to achieve the required suck and stickiness.

[RandyJ]

Well I managed to get 2 or 3 hours of free time and managed to get the 6th course completed. I did end up using some sticks and such to keep the bricks in place. They would slowly start to slide even with the fairly thick consistency. I am hoping to be able to complete the next 2 courses during the week so I can hopefully try to knock out the top of the dome next weekend. There is a bunch of rain in the forest for this week but hopefully I can work around that. We have another contract vote for my union tomorrow so hopefully I will get home a bit early and can do another row.

According to the plans for the kit the recommend to use the I.T. to set the first 8 rows then they supply a fiberglass dome to support the last few rows and then pour a keystone out of refractory castable. So in theory i may be able to complete the dome by next weekend.

Randy

[RandyJ]

Well I managed to make my goal. Trying to decide if I am going to try for row 6 tonight or not. So I managed to get 2 full rows in today and also got the oven entrance arch in. It went pretty well. I started making the mortar a lot thicker and it seems to be holding better. It is hard as it seems just a few drops of water will take it from to which to to runny.

Randy

[RandyJ]

UtahBeehiver thank you for the comment.

[UtahBeehiver]

Always appreciate good "trade" work!

[RandyJ]

Hey Toiletman , I am a Commercial / Industrial Electrician by trade. I like to try to stay on the industrial side of things doing rigid pipe installation and control work. I want nothing to do with residential work and try to stay away from most commercial stuff too if I can. As far as routing I do not like to draw things our I can just see where I want to goand usually can tell if it will work just by looking. I hate when we get preplanned cad drawings as it almost never fits where they say.

I will have to go find your build and take a look. part of why i even started this project is because i am working close to home currently. I am only like 2 miles from home and normally I am 20 to 65 miles from home. So i have some extre time so i am just trying to hammer this out quickly before I have to go to a different job site or wind up doing overtime. I also tend to get a bit obsessed with projects and have a one track mind on these things. I also have to admit the kit makes this super easy combine that with having built one before and it is a recipe for flying through the build. I only started digging like 3ish weeks ago. And got the kit just over a week ago.

This is some of the pipes I ran. This is 3 x 3.5" rigid conduits and 2 x 3" this was a fun project and this was just the prep work and we went in on Thanksgiving to finish the run and pull the wire in.

Randy

[Toiletman]

You're making great progress! a week ago we were at the same stage, but I think you're speeding ahead now, but it's not a race ofcourse. Advantages of having a kit and a previous WFO under your belt I guess. My money's on you winning the 'race', I'm now busy creating the inner arch mold and then it's back to cutting stones.
But fully agree with you that this stage is the most fun: it really starts to look and feel more like an oven and you get immediate results from every hour you put in.
You talk about bending pipes and choosing routes? Are you doing oil & gas utility installations or something? Or in another line of business? I'm in semicon, currently working on software for creating P&ID's. I guess those are the ones you turn into isometric drawings before you start bending?

[RandyJ]

I got about 3.5 hrs of work in this afternoon. I have the vent up to as high as it goes . I also completed the 3rd row and had a little mortar left so I placed the first brick on the 4th row. I am hoping to be able to get a good stretch of time to work on the oven again tomorrow. In a ideal world i would like to get the 4th and 5th row complete tomorrow and maybe the vent arch. Depending on what all comes up tomorrow i may be able to complete that.

I am very happy to be done with the base and doing the fun part of the build. I am very happy with the results so far. I am so happy to not have to cut the brick this time. I enjoy doing the putzy type of work like this. At work I am happiest when I get to be left alone and allowed to bend pipe how I want and pick the route I want. This feels a lot like that for me. I can just zone out and go to town. I will probably be a bit sad when I finish the brick work, but then I will be that much closer to getting to cook with it.

Randy

[david s]

You should follow the manufacturers recommendations. The 3;1;1;1 mix is designed to work for a range of temperatures. If the Portland fails ( beginning north of 300C) then the lime takes over. Should the lime fail (beginning north of 500C) then the clay takes over. As our temperatures don’t ever reach the 573C where clay sintering begins, the clay’s function is only to provide extra stickiness. This is a useful quality particularly when asking bricks on the higher courses to remain is place after laying. Unfortunately clay has the disadvantage vantage of imparting shrinkage. For this reason I halve the clay content in the mix. Research papers say clay can increase a mortar’s strength up to 7%, but higher than that begins to weaken it. Many sands already have a slight clay content. Sometimes bricklayers will add a little clay to those without it to improve the stickiness of the mix, although a mortar plasticiser these days is the preferred alternative. Silica sands are generally free of clay and have sharper grains which may be a slight advantage. I always dry and sieve my sand to remove any larger grains that can be problematic in mortars. A mix of grain size is desirable for a castable or render as it can enhance strength..