Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Thanks Wade, and everyone else for your kind comments. Francis, your oven is still THE best mosaic oven on the planet.
I'm glad you're still talking to me Mike since I purposely slowed down on my build just to see you finish to see 'how it's done' .

It's so weird not having to work on the oven anymore. Weekends are no longer "well, we ARE going to work on the oven today". I want to throw out every partial bag of cement, mortar, sand, lime, fireclay, stuff I have no idea where I used it, etc... and get my garage back.

Yesterday I came home from work threw in left over pizza from Sundays party to reheat it in the wfo and this is what I had time to do:


Sat in the pool, making limoncello. I had about 10 lemons from my 1st crop from my imported "Sorento Lemon" tree. Last batch I made was with Eurekas. I hope this is even better.

This is going to be a good summer. Thanks everyone, Dino

[pizza_bob]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino,
What a GREAT job you and Mike did on your oven! I can only hope mine will look 1/2 as nice as yours. I still have no clue as to what to do with the exterior but you have given me some great ideas! I hope you will still be involved with the forum to help the slackers like me who have been building for two years! I truly appreciate all the advice you have provided and look forward to seeing more pictures from you. They don't have to be oven construction pictures - I love to see pizza and food pictures too!
Enjoy your oven - you deserve it!

Best Regards,
Bob

[schallert]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino, you have a wonderful life!

D

[KraemerBAC]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino,

Thanks for the info although turns out I got a great deal on some cultured stone on Craigslist. Your lights in the soffit have inspired me though....love the night view

Peter

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Thanks Dan and I can't wait to see your stones and lighting too, Peter.

Thanks Bob, both Mike and I appreciate the compliment. Having taken a year and half of our lives to do this is as you know, quite a feat and something we will always remember fondly. And hey... your oven is already at least 1/2 again better than mine and your not done yet .

Oh, and I'll be posting more food pics. Watching what others do is so inspiring and makes one want to always try something new, different or better.

Thanks again Bob,
Cheers, Dino

[gdest]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

A YEAR AND A HALF!!! So if that is the time frame from someone who got to work on his oven every weekend, mine will be done in about 18 years!!!
Why didn't you say something sooner to me!

Great job Dino and Mike. And I still would not object to much if you two were traveling through Houston some day and stopped by to lay a brick or two in my oven.

Gary

[DaveW]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

A YEAR AND A HALF!!!

Sounds about right. I will hit the one year mark in two days. But, don't tell my wife that I may still have six months to go. She is "so over" the backyard construction site.

Dave

[Leone]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Wow! I'm screwed. I started my project a few weeks ago and told my wife I'd have it done by Labor Day.

Dino and Mike, I've enjoyed going through this thread (as well as others) and learning from your postings and photos . Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.

Dino M.

[eprante]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Yeah, good luck with that. I started last August, with an estimated finish date of Thanksgiving. I moved that to New Years, then the Super Bowl, finally had the oven operable by mid April. I am still working on the prep area with hopes to be done by August. There are people on the forum that have done it very quickly ( like 3 weeks) but most of us that aren't professionals or very experienced (and have other jobs and families)take a while. Don't stress, the whole process is a lot of fun and you will be very proud of the result.

Eric

[fxpose]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Exactly. I wouldn't sweat it either. Once your dome is up and insulated you an start using your oven and take your time on its peripherals.
That's basically where I'm at now and as I'm using the oven I can decide and make practical changes on the rest of the build, such as counters and prep areas.

George

[egalecki]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

I'm still working on "finishing" mine- the oven's complete, the counter's complete, but the outer coating I THOUGHT was complete got wrecked last year in the horrible cold and infinite rain/snow in between the horrible cold. I'm going to be using the SBC today to finish the repair, and hope that I can be REALLY finished. Then I can start doing the garden rework- currently I'm having to step over plants I haven't moved to use the oven.... not terribly convenient.

anybody need any chocolate mint, garlic chives or spiderwort? I currently have them EVERYWHERE.

And can you transplant rosemary and lavender bushes?

[geisen]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino M.
You have to take a lesson learned from this site. When the dome is done there is a tendency to take a big sign and enjoy the fruits of your labors. My wife refers to it as the "half finished bathroom" complex. So I prepped myself for that, took a deep breath and reinvigorated the project to go to completion shortly after the dome was up. Start to completion was
Late Feb - started
Early SEP - First Pizza
Mid Nov - 100% complete
That was not a fast past with just working a few days each month in my spare time.
regards
Greg

[Leone]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Thanks for the encouragement. It sounds like I should concentrate on working on completing my dome and not get to caught up on the overall finished product timeline. As they say "One day at a time". At least that's what I'm going to tell my wife.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino M.: You are following in a time-honored tradition of building projects: tell your spouse a reasonable time-line, how little it will cost and that you'll do it all and keep the yard clean AND not ignore other projects .

Seriously, thanks for the earlier compliment. I look forward to watching your build.

When I think back on it, I started digging footings in Feb and started pizzas 4 months later. My biggest pizza parties have been with the dome in the steel-stud stage, then with the cement board around it. End of this month will be our big annual pool party and friends will see the wfo in it's finished state for the 1st time. Many thought the cement board stage with the roof was the "finished" product and were impressed. Can't wait till they see it really done.

Elizabeth, I had to REALLY push myself to finish the SBC and stone work. I was in your same condition: I couldn't bear ignoring the yard and vegi garden. I just had to finish to move on to other things. Can't wait to see how your SBC- surface bonding cement went. I think rosemary transplants easily and I've transplanted lavender in the summer and it works too. Good luck.

Thanks, Dino

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Had 30 people over for our big pool party and now annual Pizza Fest. Last year, we introduced the wfo in steel studs and exposed insulation with a Sketchup Picture taped to it to show everyone what it is 'suppose' to look like when done. The oven beat my expectations and I assume everyone else's too.

My wfo location puts my back in full sun at 3pm in the summer months so I picked up this 8' "sail-shade" at HomeDepot for $30. It worked great!


It looked so nice, I bought a 17' on amazon for about the same price for the swimming pool:


However, the best part is I made my 20 pizzas using nothing but my Sour Dough Starter. I was interested in Jays (Texassourdough) method he described so I posted my experience I had with it here and recommend anyone toying with SD starter only to read the thread:
http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/10/p...r-13339-2.html
I may never use IDY-ADY again
And yes, I did make 20 pizza balls: