I've laid the oven floor bricks: 4 questions

[Fio]

These pictures illustrate my hearth construction

These pictures show how my hearth is constructed. The firebricks rest on 2" of fiberfrax board, "bonded" with fireclay. The concrete slab underneath performs no thermal function. All the heat will stay in the bricks.

[arevalo53anos]

James:

Thanks.
Yes, there is a fireplace in the corner, used for barbecue/grilling. It has been there several years ago, and the oven was finished trying to ?mimic? the external fireplace and table layout.
Normally, the oven is used at dinner time and the fireplace for lunch. Pizza Saturday night and barbecue on Sunday.
More pics next.

Drake

I agree with Marcel and I am convinced that it is better do not mortar down the first course of bricks.
Do not forget that the complete oven dome will be structurally strong and will weight several hundred pounds, being distributed all on your hearth.
I did use a rounded plastic garden table to maintain the first brick course in place!
LOL, and your dome is not going to collapse!. However, your belly do will have a lot of work the working on pizzas mass ?

Les

Yes, the external red bricks are curved. Pics following. Not just the top, I will take a picture asap and will post it here.

Luis

[Marcel]

Luis' damper, and dome facade questions

(M) Hi, Luis,

(M) Your UNclad dome is still one of the most beautiful I've seen!

(M) I have saved older images of your dome under construction. The exposed red brick covering seems to be a new addition. Am I correct? ___

(M) Are those facade bricks thinner than your dome bricks underneath? __

(M) When I look at the older images I see not only Perlcrete insulation, but a blanket insulation as well. That suggests to me that your oven is probably smaller than the 42", and maybe even smaller than the 39". How large is your oven? ___

(M) I also included a damper in my chimney flue. But as I wrote in an earlier posting, because the chimney is outside the dome, I found no reason to use my damper. How and when do you use yours? ___

(M) If it is closed doesn't the smoke simply exit the throat onto your face? ___

Obrigado,

Marcel

[arevalo53anos]

Hi, Marcel

Nice to talk with you again.
Thanks Gosh, even if my English is not better, my oven do really is. And the pizzas, uauh!!! LOL
Thanks for your words. As an engineer I could see a lot of things to change and, of course, the oven needs an acid cleaning too. But I am happy with the results.
There is an old citation: ?Built your first home to your enemy, your second one to your friend and remain with your third? ?well, it is my first oven and I am thinking that I could remain with it 
Answering your questions
Yes, if you could cut the dome of the oven vertically by middle, you could see, internally to externally view, 4 inches of half refractory bricks, may be between ? to one inches of cladding, a glass fiber blanket insulation, chicken wire, nearly 3, 31/2 inches of 8:1 ratio of vermiculite/concrete insulation and the necessary cladding to maintain the half inches, external curved red bricks.
Yes, has I had wrote above, the external bricks are four times thinner than the dome bricks, half to two inches ratio.
The internal dome size (baking zone) is 41 inches (exactly the size of the plastic blue table top that you could see in the pictures). Do figure that?
The damper is used when the fire is in the ?baking pizzas? regime, meaning: hottest the chimney, better and greater the flux of gases by it, then more hot air extracted/suctioned from the oven. The damper let you equilibrate this equation to optimize the use of wood.
May be you lost some eyebrows until reach the equilibrium LOL

Luis

[arevalo53anos]

Some pics answering questions

Fio, James and Marcel:

All of you request some pics (or I am thinking that some pics could be a better answer to posted questions).
Then there are.
Post 1 from 2.

Luis

[arevalo53anos]

Fio, James and Marcel:

Post 2 from 2.

Luis