Pizza Bob's 42" Build

[guerriero75]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Hi all,
Thanks for the help, I will start a new thread

Cheers

[mrgweeto]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob,
All those firebrick have blems on them. It would take you longer to hand pick good ones than it would to build the oven. We hop to get another course finished tomorrow which will leave us with 3 left. It is looking good. We don't really have that much waste because we use everything that is over 2+ inches when we want to make sure to try and overlap a joint. It looks very old world when you look inside. Can't wait to see the brick get dark from use MAKING PIZZAS. Does anyone out there know a good source for cookware to be used in the oven ie. gratin/small casserole dish. I know cast iron is good but I also know people cook with terricota but that will break easier.
G

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Made some progress yesterday. I cut and dry stacked the landing arch walls and reveal. The first and third courses of the vertical landing walls are mitered and tie in to the dome and reveal blocks. This should make it more sturdy and it eliminates a continuous mortar joint. I also decided to take some time (waste some time?) tapering the oven opening arch bricks. Really simple to cut on the HF tile saw and they came out really clean. I still have a couple more to cut and then I'll start mortaring them in place. I'm not sure if I'll do this for the other arch bricks but we'll see...

~Bob

[mrgweeto]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Looking Good. We have 2 more courses left on the dome. We get 6-8 bricks set with supports. We can't see wasting time watching the heatstop set so we layed out the front arch and the brick walls in front. We picked up 150 Heritage S brick at O & G and have the front arch and walls partially done. The brick were approx $.46 each and have a very old world look. Will try and send some updated pix tomorrow. We are still using our $19.95 angle grinder and $86.00 wet saw along with masons hammers and chisels. That Heatstop covers up all the blems on the outside and is great to work with. When we switched over to the masons mortar for the regular brick it felt archaic in comparison. The Heatstop reacts like a thinset.
G

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Nice work Bob!
You've built yourself a great "indispensable tool". And a really like your arch tapers. You'll be able to have really thin mortar joints and it will be really strong arch.
I don't recall reading if anyone answered your 1/2" mortar joint question on the outside of the soldiers but remember, the joint closes quickly over the 4.5" width face of the brick. In all my hairline cracks I got (and you'll get 'em too) none appeared on the soldier joints. I used Refmix down there which is quite strong. So I wouldn't worry about it but if you want to taper the long side of soldiers, it would look great but you'll never see it from the inside, looks the same as without tapering.
Love those Solid Works Drawings too, Take care, Dino

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Dino,
Thanks for the compliment! I ended-up not tapering the soldier course and the pizza will never know the difference.
I had some time yesterday to finish cutting the arch bricks. I'm happy with how they came out. I also started mortaring the flared landing walls. I realized quickly that I have no clue what I am doing when it comes to "buttering" bricks. I end-up putting to much Heatstop on the bricks and then try to make them level to each other and it makes a mess! Then I try again and think that I don't have enough Heatstop because there is nothing oozing out of the joint. Perhpas I should have practiced a little before doing this??
I'll build the form for the inner arch today and try to get that in place.

~Bob

[mrgweeto]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob,
We got up to the last course on the dome and then went on to the outer arch. We got inspired and got a real nice piece of natural stone left over from my brothers fireplace. We marked it and cut out a beautiful (handsome) keystone for the front arch. We called it quits until we get back. Did you get the margin trowel? You may find it's the best tool in your bag. You'll get the hang of buttering in no time. I didn't have time to send the pix out but will do it. We figure by next week the dome will be complete as well as the outer arch. It's then time to point up anything on the inside that needs it and then onto the walls.
G

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

I had some time early this morning to mortar the landing walls and reveal in place. I was able to miter two of these courses to tie the walls in with the dome. I am somewhat satisfied with the results of this but wish I had "squared-up" the reveals to be perfectly aligned - they're slightly off.
I'll finish the form for the inner arch later today and get that in tomorrow morning. Should the arch(es) always have the center keystone tapped into place as the final brick? Or, can I build the arch from left to right (or right to left) and tap in the final brick at the base of the arch? Or, am I thinking about this too much??

~Bob

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Now how do I keep these mortar joints this size so I don't have to cut a "custom" keystone?? The first tapered arch brick from the left and the one from the right are already mortared in place. I'll mortar the remainder in tomorrow morning and then it's back to the dome and trying to tie the second course in with this arch. I'm psyched that this is finally starting to look like a pizza oven to me!

~Bob

[mrgweeto]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob,
What I would recomend is to go back and forth. Start and lay your base then go back and forth. What this does is to allow you to level each course. If you lay it out dry and allow for the mortar joint you will know what the size of the keystone should be. We got back from our work week in Phoenix AZ and jumped right into the oven building mode again. We looked at the pictures everyday and I think AZ is sick of hearing about our "new found love". We finished the dome and the arch with the custom cut kestone. It looks really great. I will get some pix out Monday when I am back in the office.
And yes yes yes. We did light one small piece of the front page of the New Haven Register to see how the draw was on the flue. It was beeeeeautiful. The smoke went straight up. When I tell you it was small, I don't think the temp went up to body temp. We did take the front arch and kept the finished arch approx an inch lower than the inside as a smoke ledge. Like the idea of the smoke curling up and around and going straight up the chimney. My fireplace has that and it works to keep the front looking good and figured why not do that on the WFO. It works.
Going to go up with the chimney tomorrow so we can start on the walls and tie it in later on in the week if we get time. Getting close now.
G

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Mr. Gweeto,
Congratulations on finishing that dome and lighting that first fire! That's got to be a great feeling! I feel as if I'll never get there at the rate I'm going. Send some pix when you get a chance.

So my arch building skills need some improvement. Luckily this is the inner arch which is mostly out of sight. The dry stack arch looked so nice but to keep those mortar joints consistent was challenging! I ended-up soaking the bricks for a little bit to help make this process easier. I also drew lines on my wooden form that showed where each brick should be placed - on the inside of the arch. The problem was that there was no marking for the top side of the arch! I ended-up not spacing these properly and didn't notice it would be a problem until I got to the wider joints you see in the attched picture. I determined that I needed to go with this wider joint on each side in order to prevent a situation where the mortar joint gap at the top side of the arch was actually smaller than the gap at the inside of the arch. I called this a negative angle and the only way to eliminate it was to go with a thicker joint (1/4") in the two places shown. The other issue was...as I was working from left side towards the keystone and right side towards the keystone, the bricks started to skew. The left side was skewing out towards the front of the oven while the right side was skewing towards the back. I again didn't notice until the last few bricks so had to make a noticable adjust (a step) to correct it. Most of this won't be seen but the 1" door reveal will have a slight step in it and the door will not sit flush against the reveal. I ended-up buttering both ides of the keystone before placing and it needed to be lightly tapped into place. I purposely hurried to get the last 4 bricks in place so when I tapped the keystone the mortar joints of these last four brciks would flow while I tapped the keystone in. It seemed to work well - as the keystone was tapped into position the joints around the keystone and the last 4 bricks had mortar pushing out slightly. I'm not sure if I should have been tapping that keystone in place but it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. How do you know if your tapping the keystone too hard??? I didn't see any cracks or separation in of the other joints but now I worry that this arch will have residual stresses from the tapping of the keystone. It seems really strong though! I wonder if I can remove the forms tomorrow???
Overall...I' m okay with how it came out. I don't mind the joints being slightly larger in two place but I am not satisfied with the skewing of the bricks. If you look at the picture you can not notice it because the mismatch is "in and out" of the screen. The bricks to the left of the keystone have a small step coming out at you and the bricks on the right have small step going into the screen. Again...most of this will be hidden/covered- up but will it make it more difficult for me to create the vent area arch??
I'll work on the second course today - so I finally get to try out my indispensible tool!

~Bob

[mrgweeto]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob,
I think it looks great. the 5th bricks left and right as you pointed out have a slightly bigger joint. Except for you.......who cares. Remember that for most of us we are not masons. When you come over and see ours I'm sure you will be able to see some inperfections. Anyone that is gont to come over to see the finished procust will be in awe. I know because the few that have been following our progress are astounded at the oven. Most/all people have no clue. We went up a second flue today and ran out of brick so we are going to pick up the few more we need and look at some tiles for the hearth. We lit a few very small fires and I'll tell you that it is very impressive to not only see the draft working but to hear it going up the flue. One half piece of the front page of a news paper and you can feel the heat in the upper portion of the dome.
Don't beat yourself up with being dead nuts because you are working with a medium (mortar) that can't be exact. Very close but not withing 1000ths as you are use to. Your arch looks neat as a pin. Will send you some pix tomorrow
G

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Guy,
Nice job with your build! The keystone looks great! Congrats on the first fire!

I had no time to do anything today. I pulled the form for the arch and that's it! I think it's time for a "stay-cation" in the back yard...
I need to clean-up mortar that oozed out of the arch joints tomorrow. Is it best to just chip-away at the oozed mortar? Now I move on to the second course of the dome - my indispensible tool will finally be tried out!

~Bob

[Rodneyf]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

It all looks good so far and you will be moving pretty quick from this point. I found I slowed down when I got closer to closing the dome and then once it is closed you will go ahead in leaps and bounds. I have been seen outside at 10pm with a miners light on my head working on cleaning the joints I have done that afternoon after work. Enjoy your build, I think that is why we are doing this after all. I am not sure it is all about the pizzas, some of us just need a project to give us "my time".

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Thanks Rodney! I can only hope it goes quicker than it did this week.

I finally got some time this weekend to mortar the first course. I cut compond angles on the the bricks to minimize gaps and large mortar joints - I'm not sure if it was worth the headache but I think it came out okay. It was so HOT in Connecticut this weekend and I'm hoping it doesn't effect the curing of this course. I worked under a canopy so there was no direct sunlight but temps were in the 90's and humid - perhaps the humidity helps??
I also set-up the adjustable indispensible tool which wasn't neccessary for this course but did help maintain the circle and should help in the remaining courses. I also cut-out a template from particle board for the inner shape of the arch. I'll use that as I go to ensure I'm staying on track for a 19" dome height...

~Bob