Drawing the arch?

[mikeye15]

How are you guys drawing the arches. Not the half round but the more flat ones. Are you just useing a larger radius than what you have?
Thanks
Mike

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Drawing the arch?

Mike, I approached my inner arch this way: I wanted my side walls/vent landing to be 3 bricks high. That equals about 8.5" at the sides. The FB plans and everyone's experience tell us the oven opening shouldn't go over 12" or 12.5". I went with 12", so that dictated the curve. If you go thru the PHOTO GALLERY, you see about half of us used 4 bricks stacked at the sides and half used 3. If you want a less "arch-y" entry and like the taller 4 bricks at the sides, your curve is less pronounced. 3 bricks and it's more pronounced. THEN you want to tapper most, if not all the arch bricks on their sides so each is a wedge to make the arch as strong as possible. Some just use the half bricks and mortar triangular joints to make the arch. All this mostly dictates the curve.

On mine: I had someone hold and bend a 5" by 1/16" thin scrap sheet metal sheet between the walls (on the thin side of course) until I had pleasing curve, then held a piece of plywood behind it and drew a line, following the curve of the sheet metal against the plywood, careful not to push it out of its curve. The pencil line on the plywood became my guide to cut with a small jig saw. I cut 2 pieces and nailed them together to hold the arch up while I mortared. Hope this helps, Dino

[geisen]

Re: Drawing the arch?

Mike
I used the software that comes with a tool you can buy at HD for $15. the Angleizer.
Took some pictures on my thread. you plug in the span and height of the arch. it tells you the cut for each brick. genius.
gg