OctoForno

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Ok, so I've finally made enough progress that I feel worthy of posting a report. First off, I was able to get through the interview process and am back among the employed. Woo-hoo! Alas, because the days are getting shorter I only get about 90 minutes a day to work on the oven.
As such, I've been able to cut the floor and entryway bricks, acquired insulating bricks for my entryway thermal (heat) break, and picked up a section of 1" square steel tubing for the actual break.
I will be going with a soapstone floor that sits directly on top of the firebrick 'subfloor'. I'm hoping the steel tube 1/16" wall thickness will transfer less heat out of the soapstone floor if it's left empty rather than filled with insulation. Using duct tape to create a template on my SS slabs, I then cut the floor using a 4 1/2" wet saw. Finally, I cut my soldier bricks and half of my inner arch form. This weekend I hope to get the floor leveled and start mortaring the soldiers and first course.

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Eric,

Thanks for the kind words. I too have changed my original plans and will go with steel studs, concrete board and stucco around the dome. Haven't yet decided on tile or bricks for the face. I gotta tell you, I've been following your thread and calling a project the size of yours a 'build' would be grossly inadequate. Calling it a 'complex' would be more like it. It's gonna be a prime party place when you're done.

Tom,
Yep. Every last one of 6,000+ hollandstone pavers. I got seconds for the insane price of $50 a pallet (so I bought 16 pallets) and when I went to install them found that the corners all chipped off and that they weren't square. Since I've been unemployed and had some extra time I set off to grind each and every brick square and take the pointy corners off so they wouldn't chip. In a full day of work I got 150 bricks trimmed and set into sand, and was exhausted. The real work ensued when I had to trim, cut 45's and bevel them before putting them down. After this whole exercise I'm pleased with the way the patio turned out but will subsequently contribute my story to the "what not to do' sticky.

I kept telling myself all the practice with the cuts I've made will make me better when the oven brickwork comes!

Dino,
Thanks for providing the original input on resizing my dome to 39". It was your recent post on the size of your 42" that convinced me to scale my oven down slightly, and I'm feeling better about it. If my finished oven comes out half as good as yours I'll be tickled. Actually, I borrowed the thermal break idea from the build by drseward and tscarborough. Come to think of it, I've borrowed every single idea for my oven from all the folks here!

Chris,
Thanks for all the valuable input. It's because of you I decided to go with soapstone and you're absolutely correct: I almost peed my pants when I went to meet the guy who sold it to me and saw the dimensions of the 'clear' slabs. I literally grinned all the way home. I did a comparative test and after sitting in the sun for half the afternoon I measured the surface of the soapstone and a firebrick with my IR thermometer. With an ambient air temp of 81F the firebrick registered 101F and the soapstone 135F. I am curious to find out how the soapstone recharges from a 'sub-base' of 2.5" firebrick during a pizza cook.

CB,
Thank you for the sage advice of taking my time. If I have done anything, it's take things steady to ensure I don't rush things and compromise the quality of my work. This is the first real thing I've ever built and don't have the experience or skill to go fast.

My next task will be to cut my floor bricks and soapstone. I'll take pics to illustrate the process.

John

[countryboy]

Re: OctoForno

John,

Great looking build so far. Definitely going to be a super nice looking patio when finished! Take your time and do it right!

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

John you have Email.

Chris

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: OctoForno

John, those are fine choices you made!

I think you've taken the time to fine tune what you want and a 39" oven and hemispherical arch is going to be perfect. Your "thermal break...entry...data" thingy is over my head but it sounds great . Seriously, wish I'd of done it. I think the more people that do it and the more pics we see of it make it sooo much easier for the next build. You seem to like a challenge and I can't wait to see how great the soapstone turns out. Like Chris said, the whole area is looking really nice,
-Dino

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

Your oven area, it’s looking great John, really nicely executed, clean and functional. When the Granite and oven get installed you’re going to have a real show stopper of a back yard! Very Very nice!

I had imagined that the SStone that you found was going to be smaller cut-off bits. It looks like what you found was full slabs, or nearly full slabs and it looks like its mostly homogeneous rather than heavily veined, wow! What a find!.

If your jigsaw doesn’t move through the material the way you want, I had a thought about cutting your stone. If you build up the HF saw and a counter to a matching height, you can drop the saw blade into and through the stone material and get an 8 to 8.5 inch long cut in a minute or so. This would still take a while to get your circle done, but I think you might avoid the dust and grinding that the jigsaw and sander may put you through. This also avoids having to slide the stone past the HF-10 blade.

John, you're too kind with regards to my jig setup, it has potential but still needs a bit of engineering and fabricating. Let’s see if I can pull all of the parts together and we’ll find a time and place to pass the tool along. I’ll message you later about getting together.


Chris

[Tscarborough]

Re: OctoForno

John, did you do the pavers yourself?

(It all looks great, BTW)

[EricU]

Re: OctoForno

Hello All!

After what has seemed like forever, I finally have some progress to report...

After that I have to install 1500sq' of patio pavers, and then on to the oven!

John

John,

Very nice job, that is how I did my slab with the inset insulation as I was also going to use 4" block (though my oven surround is the boring square shape) but decided to switch to steel studs and cement board because I want to batter my walls.

I really like the cantilever at your hearth!

The people on this site have been a huge source of help and information, and as my build progresses, I am continiually asking for help.

Good luck! Eric.

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Chris,

The gentleman I bought the soapstone from is a sole-proprietor cabinet-maker at heart who branched out into countertops and had scraps in his garage he was looking to sell. Truth be told, I would like to tackle this job personally. My plan is to line my slabs up on saw horses and scribe a circle, cover the circle with tape like you did, and scribe the circle again. I want to try the (stone?) carbide tipped jigsaw blades same as the process shown here:

Soapstone countertops (scroll down to video #14)

It should go smoothly, but if it doesn't work I'll go with my masonry wet-circular saw (worked beautifully making 45deg cuts for my octagon oven base blocks) and then grind the edges smooth.

Sure, I'd be honored to put your jig to work! It is easily the most advanced brick-cutting tool I have seen used here. Let me know how we can make the transfer and I'll make it up to you once I get back into the working world. I'll be happy to swing by if that's easiest.

John

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

Sorry to hear you're in the finding a job mode, that sucks!! As for cutting my soapstone in the entry area, I used the HF-10 to make the cuts. I clamped and supported the rough stone enough to get the cuts. Round cuts is going to be a bit tougher on you. I wonder if the soapstone folks you bough yours from have a jet machine to that can cut a 38 inch circle for you. A six pack of whatever and a $20 and you could be done with this part. The other way to do it is to get a 7" diamond blade for your circular saw and cut an octagon or better. The stone isn't that hard but because what we want is higher in serpentine than talc it's not really workable with carbide wood blades.

John I'm clearing out my self fabricated brick cutting jig, you're welcome to it if you'd like it.

Chris

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Chris,

Haven't had much time to work on the oven since I've been tied up with job searching and interviews. Should be over soon, though.

In my 'spare' time I have decided to make several major changes to my original oven plan:

1. I will be going with a 39" oven instead of 42". This is because I would like to cook in an oven fired once-a-week that should hopefully give me three days cooking heat. I am guessing that I will be inclined to fire a slightly smaller oven more often than a larger one.

2. My entryway will be a hemispherical arch to take advantage of the strength of the design, the aesthetics, and the fact that the ancient ovens had these.

3. I will go with a thermal break between my inner arch and the entryway as well as a break between my oven floor and entryway floor primarily because of data that you supplied verifying heat loss through your entryway soapstone. Also, I am in the market for some insulating firebrick to support the entire entryway.

I am just about ready to cut my oven firebrick 'subfloor' and then the soapstone. I saw a YouTube video on cutting soapstone easily with a carbide-tipped jigsaw blade, but the guy I got the SS from said he rough cuts the radius with a masonry skilsaw and grinds the edges smooth. Didn't you do it this way?

Anyway, here's some pics of the soapstone I picked up and my nearly finished patio in front of my nearly started oven.

John

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

John,

How's the build going?

Chris

[Dino_Pizza]

re: OctoForno

Great looking base John. Recessing the insulating layer into the base is a great way to go. The octagon base is so cool. Can't wait to see the rest. Very nice job so far. Look forward to the rest., -Dino

[dmun]

re: OctoForno

It's nice that you got such good treatment from HW: my visit to my local branch sent me looking for other sources. I also wanted those refractory tiles, but, wow, the cost...

Insblock19 is a good product. It's used in kiln building a lot, and your two inches will probably be enough. I used two and a half inch (it may have been left over from a custom order) and my support slab almost never warms up on the bottom.

[GianniFocaccia]

re: OctoForno

Hello All!

After what has seemed like forever, I finally have some progress to report. I was able to pour my foundation slab, mortar in all my angle-cut stand blocks and repair the retaining wall that fronts my oven stand. After cutting out the original retaining wall I had discovered a crack in one of the blocks and when removing it with a hammer (what else?) accidentally cracked the full block next to it. I lost two days rebuilding it but that?s life.

I went with a 2x10? support/insulation frame dimension that would allow 1? of stand overlap, 4? of support slab depth and 5? of vermicrete insulation. Next, after scribing a plywood template for the base of the octagon support slab , I was able to cut and bend ?? rebar that got placed 12? on center and ends that terminated 8? into the depths of my block cores.

My plan called to pour the support and the insulation slabs separately, basically for ease of placing and filling the insulation form. Unfortunately, after the first pour my computer crashed and I lost all of the photos I had of the rebar grid, but oh well.

Later, after two road trips, a long weekend in Las Vegas and a week of hosting a Japanese homestay player (my daughter stayed at this girl?s family house in Fukuoka, Japan, last summer when we visited during an all-star basketball exchange program) I was able to finish my insulation form and pour the surrounding concrete deck. The redwood bender boards proved challenging, but soaking them first did the trick.

Yesterday I visited the local ANH Refractory distribution center and was impressed with Frank, the DC manager. He took the time to walk me through the warehouse and introduced me to every one of his refractory products, including: 5-6 kinds of refractory bricks, refractory mortar, castable, insulation block, boards, ceramic blanket, and a caulk-like fiber insulation that comes in a tube. The coolest product (I think) he had was 12?x24? refractory ?tiles? that came in 2, 2 ?? and 3? thicknesses. If I had the budget to buy these for my oven floor I would, but I would have to also buy firebricks to ensure matching expansion rates. Since I already got my bricks, I told myself I would do this on my next oven.

Understandably, I felt like a kid in a candy store and walked out with my first bag of refractory mortar and (unexpected) a 24cu? case of 2? Insblok 19 that had been accidentally torn open by a forklift and subsequently returned by the customer. I got it for less than the price of three bags of vermiculite so off I went, deciding I would just go with 3? vermicrete /2? insulation board and use the leftover vermiculite on the dome.

Fortunately, my initial thoughts of overkill dissipated when I remembered that quite a few FB?ers (Elizabeth? Les?) have designed their insulation layers beyond the recommended 2? of insulating board or 4? of vermicrete/perlcrete. Besides, didn?t I see somewhere that ?one cannot over-insulate??

I?m not sure if I will press the Insblock into wet vermicrete (dmun) or let my vermicrete cure first and lay the Insblok onto a dry vermicrete ?slab?. My initial thoughts are that pressing the board onto wet vermicrete would help it cure more slowly in this 95-98* socal weather.

After that I have to install 1500sq' of patio pavers, and then on to the oven!

John