Interior decorative glaze questions

[Zimmy]

I read in someone's build thread (that I can no longer find) that they applied a design to the interior of the dome capstone using a pottery glaze of some sort. My potter friend is willing to design, apply, and fire a design to my capstone, but I am running in to trouble selecting a glaze formulation. I'm using the Whitacre-Greer medium duty firebrick. To match firing temperature, I was thinking an earthenware/low fire glaze would be good as the brick is fired at 2000F and those glazes fire in a similar range. They are still a higher CTE than the brick, which makes me think they will craze crack upon cool-down and then risk seasoning my pizza with fragments of glass containing pigments of unknown toxicity. Has anyone done this successfully or can point me to anyone who has?

[Giovanni Rossi]

To each his own but, it's pretty hard to see the capstone in a finished oven. You may want to reconsider the effort considering your concerns. I carved the capstone and troweled in some refractory mortar for contrast. You can see it in place in post #54 in my build. It was pretty easy to do. It's only visible after the dome clears and you can't stick your head in the flue gallery at that time. With the length of my gallery, I can crouch down and get a glimpse of if for a second from the front edge of the landing. It's held up fine for 3+ years, I think. Honestly, I haven't looked at it since last year. I just show a picture of it to guests who are interested.

My inspiration came from Russell UtahBeehiver who did a beautiful multi-color sunburst design. Unfortunately, I can't get his link to work to see it now.

[SableSprings]

Here's a link to Russell's carved capstone. As Giovanni noted, it's a fun and satisfying finish to a build but ultimately (and unfortunately) it doesn't get much attention and/or appreciation when there's a pizza on deck. Having your potter friend do a glazed something on one (or more) of your front entry arch bricks would be pretty classy and always visible every time someone admires your oven (with or without pizza) ...

https://community.fornobravo.com/member/19129-utahbeehiver/media

[david s]

Because the glaze to be used must match the type of firing done by your potter friend, it's best to ask him/her to supply the glaze. Probably use an underglaze for your design followed by a clear glaze to cover.