Hi all,
I have been looking around for a source of refractory bricks and luckily there is a manufacturer less than an hour away. It seems as if it is a company that has been manufacturing these materials since 1905 Clayburn Industries (terrible website). The must know something. I called and they said they manufactured bricks with approximately 50% alumina content and that people have used these bricks for building wood ovens. The over the phone estimate was about $4 CDN/brick. With the trajectory on the economy this should be half that price in a week ;-).
Would you consider this a high duty brick (~50% alumina) ? Do you think this is in the correct range for a pizza oven? I still do not have my head around the concept of having an "over performing" high duty brick. The price seems high to me but I have yet to see the quality of the actual product and little experience to compare.
Now here is the bane of modern life, choice. The representative suggested an alternative of using their casting mix in bags that has a similar alumina content. I would build a form and cast a dome or segments of a dome to build the oven. The theory would be that I would save a lot of time and money in trying to construct a brick dome. Has any one here taken this approach (other than the professional pre-fab oven manufacturers)?
I guess in the cast approach one sinters the dome in situ with a firing. Is this really the same thing as having a dome made of kiln fired bricks?
It seems that in the cast approach I am substituting learning brick laying with learning how to cast a dome without failure. One critical mistake and the whole dome is lost. I would worry more about the dome "flaking" in use with a cast dome?
Thoughts appreciated.
Cheers
Joe
I have been looking around for a source of refractory bricks and luckily there is a manufacturer less than an hour away. It seems as if it is a company that has been manufacturing these materials since 1905 Clayburn Industries (terrible website). The must know something. I called and they said they manufactured bricks with approximately 50% alumina content and that people have used these bricks for building wood ovens. The over the phone estimate was about $4 CDN/brick. With the trajectory on the economy this should be half that price in a week ;-).
Would you consider this a high duty brick (~50% alumina) ? Do you think this is in the correct range for a pizza oven? I still do not have my head around the concept of having an "over performing" high duty brick. The price seems high to me but I have yet to see the quality of the actual product and little experience to compare.
Now here is the bane of modern life, choice. The representative suggested an alternative of using their casting mix in bags that has a similar alumina content. I would build a form and cast a dome or segments of a dome to build the oven. The theory would be that I would save a lot of time and money in trying to construct a brick dome. Has any one here taken this approach (other than the professional pre-fab oven manufacturers)?
I guess in the cast approach one sinters the dome in situ with a firing. Is this really the same thing as having a dome made of kiln fired bricks?
It seems that in the cast approach I am substituting learning brick laying with learning how to cast a dome without failure. One critical mistake and the whole dome is lost. I would worry more about the dome "flaking" in use with a cast dome?
Thoughts appreciated.
Cheers
Joe
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