My 27" build in Albuq

[JDub36"]

rsandler wrote: "You might think about shortening your flue gallery so that the door intersects further out on the arc of the floor. It looks like you've laid out a one-brick length gallery, 9" deep, which usually works well to fit a 6" diameter flue, which is needed for a 36" oven. But, if you've got a smaller dome, you might get away with a smaller flue, and could shorten the gallery as a result."

I've played around with gallery length, using half bricks (4-1/2") for both inner and outer arches. Still, the gallery to the outer arc is going to have to go right up to the front edge of the hearth. It's going to be tight, but I can't really move the dome farther back else I lose the necessary buffer for insulation blanket and render. It shortens the flue gallery by about 1" (as measure from outside of inner arch) This configuration means a 3" throat leading to a planned 5" dia chimney. Floor bricks as shown need to be beveled for a better (less mortar) fit for better heat retention. Need to come up with a jig to be able to cut odd angles as saw only has a 45 degree jig. Not sure what I have to craft a jig but have found a Rigid mitre gauge for a tile saw that will clamp to the back fence of saw. Its just rather expensive. My saw will only allow me to cut my bricks when laying on flat wide side so beveling may be limited. I did read on forum that "mortar is your friend" or "mortar covers a multitude of sins" -something to that affect. For short cuts I've just held bricks in place to get them started and keep the fingers well away. Not ideal, though.

Welcome any comments on the floor/flue gallery intersection and if the half bricks will work for arches. Building the outer arch right up to the front edge of the hearth I think is going to be the hard part. Maybe not..

[nlinva]

Looking at the second picture in the above post (#16), you want to make sure that there is enough space behind you to pull out a long pizza peel without hitting anything behind your back. I would recommend testing this with a broomstick or something similar. Most likely, you'll want to build a pretty wide outer arch (as much as space allows) to allow you enough left-to-right movement of the peel to pull it out at an angle.

[UtahBeehiver]

If you use a tapered inner arch, (recommended) then you cannot use 1/2 bricks, they require using a full brick that is cut down to a taper. This is one of the most difficult concept for builders to visualize bit it is worth the effort since the dome meshes with the inner arch consistently and with less complex cutting. There are dozens of examples on the blog of "tapered" inner arches.

[rsandler]

Utah is of course correct, and I also would recommend tapering your inner arch. However, from the perspective of how much depth your inner arch occupies, I think you can roughly approximate that as a half brick even with a tapered arch, and that's standard and easy enough.

I would not recommend trying to build your outer arch just a half brick/4.5" deep--you're going to have a real hard time making that stable and get a big enough opening for the flue. 6" you might get away with. Possibly you could also think about casting your gallery, rather than building from brick? David S on this forum is a proponent for doing that even on otherwise brick ovens. That would let you do whatever shape and dimensions please you..

Also second checking that you have enough room to operate the oven; if not you could rotate 90 degrees and use the other corner, which appears to face out into the yard.