BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Nice thread Bill. Great build too. Awesome touch with the engraved keystone. Thousands of years from now, somone may scrape the soot off and see your inscription.
I'm slowly (very slowly) catching up a bit here. I look forward to seeing your finish.
George

Thanks George,

I got the idea from this forum. In fact almost all of the things I did came from here. Great forum!

Thanks again, I got a lot accomplished this weekend and making good headway for my party this weekend. I'm getting ready to post some pictures.

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Hi Bturton,

I haven't used Pecan wood for any of the smoking I've done; I didn't know it was available. Heck, I've had a hard time finding oak! I travel all over the south and have access to a very large tandem axle trailer that I'm not afraid of towing to get a cord of real good wood.

Thanks for the info on the pecan wood. If it's good for cooking maybe I'll just grab some next time I'm in GA.

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Thanks RT!

I'm going to try and find your guy tomorrow or Wednesday. This is just getting silly trying to find wood. I stopped by two places today in my travels and both tried to sell me wood so green it was probably just cut this weekend. He tried to tell me it was "hard wood" and it's heavier than most. As I laughed uncontrollably trying to make it to my car without falling over from the cramps I was getting from the belly laugh I had going on he said he would sell it to me for half what he quoted me. I wished him luck and went on with my day... Still laughing ...

[exceloven]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Bill,
Love your oven (especially the double arch)/ Looking forward to more pix.

Mark

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

12-6-08

I spent the entire weekend sun up to sun down working on the oven. Friday I started to fire cure the oven with the propane and turkey fryer burner. It worked out perfectly. I was able to keep a flame going constantly until Saturday night. It steamed a small amount at first but then just started drying out. No cracks appeared anywhere except a few small shrinkage cracks in the added thermal mass I added on the top but they were there while it was curing, they just got a little bigger but then closed up after the steam went away. I wrapped the oven with the insulation I bought. I used Thermal Dynamics Cerablanket, 1" thick. 2 rolls gave me 3 full inches around the entire dome. The oven stayed at the desired temp all night, Saturday I opened it up a bit and got it to 350f very quickly. It was so simple, I didn't mess with it at all and just checked the temp now and then. Saturday night the bricks were dry and the mortar was white. The temp slowly climbed as the bricks got drier. Sunday I was feeling good when I woke up at 5:00am and the oven was at 425f and had a nice glow. I shut the gas off, took a high powered light and didn't see any cracks but managed to feel the intense heat coming off the bricks! I looked at the exterior shell, no cracks, no steam. I made the decision to go forward with Vermiculite/portland mix. I covered it with 1" of the mix all the while the oven was back on and was at 450f. By Sunday night I was very tired, got a lot done on the brick work, and the oven was at 500f. I decided to shut it down until tonight. At 5:45pm I checked it and the oven temp is at 250f and all I have is a stack of Chicago bricks for an oven door. I'm very happy with the performance so far and can't wait to get a real fire going in it to see what happens.

Here is the progress so far.

[ATTACH]10171[/ATTACH] Nice glow from the propane.

[ATTACH]10170[/ATTACH] 3" of Cerablanket insulation with chicken wire

[ATTACH]10172[/ATTACH] This was looking up the chimney from the floor

[ATTACH]10173[/ATTACH] Here is the Greek dude ready for pizza! I have a small granite landing being made that he will stand on.

I'm beat!

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

A few more shots.

Vermiculite going on. Love getting my hands dirty.

Almost done

Brick work is getting close to being done. Well at least what I want to get done by Saturday. Surprisingly, the vermiculite was not even warm when the oven was at 500f last night. Very impressed so far.

My daughter thought this was sooooo funny.

No oven tonight, I'm wiped out. Too much work work to do.

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

12-9-08

Just a quick post. The oven temp is at 175-ish. It's been sitting with this make shift door since Sunday night with no additional fireing. I'm going to assume that it's doing it's job right?

Here's my super cool door!

Still around 170-175f after shutting down Sunday night at 500f. Way cool.

[mfiore]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Bill,
Just getting caught up. Your WFO has turned out great so far. I love the "little greek dude". Very original.

[amber]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Elizabeth, your oven looks so pretty, in the snow or out! I'm hoping for snow this year, but I'm in Asheville so we've pretty much forgotten what snow feels like. It was cold yesterday, but today it's like 50 and drizzley. I can't wait to use my oven in the cold, though. It's a reason to get outside.

[amber]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Oops, posted that on the wrong thread. Sorry!

[christo]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Bill - Are you sure your thermometer is still alive? could you have gotten it too hot and damaged it?

Amber - I like ovens in snow, too!

Christo

[amber]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

And you have an even worse chance of getting to see yours in it than I do, I imagine!

[Bandrasco]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Hey Christo,

Yes I made sure the thermo works ok. I took it out to check along with inserting a digital thermo afterwords and it's right on. Is what I'm seeing out of the norm? Below I have pics of my fist wood fire: I just got in and it's 12:15am...NOT ME!

The first fire

Slowly starting to grow

Nice flame! Inside temps were about 600f, top third of dome was white after a short while

Finished all the chimney except the acid wash and the spark arrester.

[christo]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Wonderful! I really like the brick facade! -

I honestly thought you'd be making pizzas for your friends in just a completed dome - not fully completed and washed oven!!!

It would also appear that you did a fine job with your insulation - very nice heat retention - I keep wanting to try to dry friut on the third day, but have not tried it yet. And as your oven continues to dry out, performance could become even better.

Take plenty of pics of the party!

Christo

[mfiore]

Re: BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

Very cool chimney. I love the brick.