Matt's WFO Build

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

I did not get as much done this weekend as I had hoped. On Saturday I was able to layout and cut most of the floor for the pizza oven in the morning before I took the kids to the San Francisco Zoo. I found that the transition from the ring to the arch / entry to the pizza oven was going to be a lot harder than I thought. So I concentrated on cutting all of the bricks and setting them flat in the fireclay sand mixture. When we got back from the zoo and for a little bit on Sunday I stared at the dome entry transition area and tried to figure out what to do next.

The primary problem I am having is that I am building the oven such that the floor sits inside the walls of the dome and entryway. This situation results in a very complex brick cut for the entry way dome transition area where I had intended to have a 1? reveal to rest the oven door against. In order to keep the floor bricks isolated from the wall bricks you need to cut a male and female set of bricks that are somewhat complex shapes. So far I am not having much luck with this series of cuts. I can make the male version fairly easily as you can see from the pictures, but the female version is quite another story. In the pictures I have a female version sitting on top of uncut bricks and I am wondering if I need to have all of the floor bricks inside of the walls can have this one section under the walls. Has anyone else had this problem? Am I making this harder than it needs to be? Now that I am well into this I think I can see why a lot of people choose to build the walls and the entry directly on top of the floor bricks without trying to keep the two separate.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Matt, nice work so far. Here is a picture of what I did for my floor at the arch walls. It's probably very confusing since I did it BOTH ways. You can see the left side arch wall does NOT have the herringbone floor under it. Only the right side does (mostly, if you look really close). I did not know what to do either. I intended to keep the floor within the arch walls but for some reason did not do it on the right side of the entry. Please don't ask me why (because I do not have a good answer) but I think doing it the way I did on the left side which is floor is inside, is the preferred way; the 1st or lower level of the arch wall bricks are exactly like the arch wall bricks for 3-4 rows above them.
If you want to leave the herringbone floor continuing under the arch wall bricks like I did on the right side, I'm sure that's fine too.
Remember: its OK that in your floor cuts (male and female) in this area may not be as tight as you would like. I've got 1/8" gaps or more in this complex area and it allows for expansion of the oven floor. Hope this helps -dino

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Dino,

Thanks for your words of encouragement, I will go stare at the bricks with a nice glass of wine after work and hope that I have an epiphany.

Have you had a chance to look at the joints in your oven before lighting a fire and during the fire to see if the joints close up at all?

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Well I am back at the build after taking a couple of weeks off to play with the family before school starts up again. I put the first soldier course in yesterday and it looks good. It even made a bell like bong sound this morning when I thumped it with my knuckle.

A am starting to think about the next step in building the opening arch and I think I have it right. Those of you with more experience than I have could you have a look at the sketech I have attached and let me know if you think I have it right.

I am leaving a 1" reveal for the door. The opening is 20" wide and three bricks high (7.5") before the arch starts. The max height of the opening is 12 1/2" and the inner oven dome is 21". Any thoughts would be apreciated.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

All told it was a very productive weekend. With the help of my 85 year old Italian father in law I was able to get the first chain constructed and I even worked on the start of the entry way a little. As we started working on the first chain I asked him how it looked. In his heavy accent he told me that it looked like I had not worked with mortar before. It sounds cold, but when your English is iffy at best you don?t have the vocabulary to beat around the bush. Fortunately he is a good teacher and I think I now have a better idea as to how this should be done. My father in law had a couple of great pieces of advice for me in the construction process that I would like to share with all of you.

1. Don?t make a smooth perfectly toweled blob of mortar and plop the brick on it. You need to leave gaps in the mortar to allow give it somewhere to go when you tap in into place. Place a lumpy blob in the middle of the area you plan to put the brick on then tap it into position. If you have gaps trowel mortar into them once the brick is in position.
2. Don?t touch the mortar with your fingers. Your fingers are for picking your nose not moving mortar that is what the trowel is for.

I hope this helps those of you that are just starting out. I have included pictures so you can see how the build is going so far.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Last weekend went fairly well. My father in law and I placed a couple of chains and I started to work on the entry arch for the oven. I am not sure how this is supposed to work but I figured I would build the arch and figure out how the dome ties into it or goes past it as I work on it.

Having a really big wet saw has been quite handy for cutting the entry arch bricks on a taper.

I just wish my mortar work was a nice and clean as some of the other posters on the forum.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Your mortar work looks fine to me Matt. Your next few rings will be a lot of fun as you see the dome arch over.

On your second pic that shows the right side of the arch (looking out), I used that as an opportunity to "tie" the dome into the arch structure by cutting a brick that looks a like a pac-man with its mouth open to the left "eating" the arch brick. If you are too young to know what a pac-man is, ask your father-in-law .

You wont be able able to do that with each ring, but at least 1-2 on each side should work. -Dino

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

When you tied the chain to the arch was it one combination brick (i.e. part chain part arch) or did it sit on top of the completed arch. I have seen quite a few postings with the latter version.

Thanks for the words of encouragement and pointers they are much appreciated. By the way I am old enough to remember pacman. I even remember asteroids and space invaders.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Now that I have made it half way around the fifth chain I have a much better idea as to how the bricks tie into the arch. Not only that the dome is now really starting to take shape and close up much faster. Each chain is now quite rewarding to construct. Only problem is I ran out of mortar (6 bags so far). Not sure how many bags everyone else has gone through but the kit comes with seven and a half and I am not sure that would be enough. I think I will buy two more bags and hopefully that will do the trick.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

I have discovered that I am using a lot more bricks and a lot more mortar than I thought I would use. Originally I thought I would need something in the order of 200 bricks for the floor and for the dome of the oven and maybe something like 7 bags of the refmix. Well I have now gone through most of the bricks and I have 6 chains left to go (my guess is something like 50 more bricks) and all of the refmix. Since the refmix is starting to get a little expensive I am thinking I will bit the bullet and start using the homebrew. It is a shame now that I have sort of figured out how to work with the refmix.

Over the weekend I managed to get the entrance and flue to the oven mostly done. The entry arch looks a little bit off but it appears to be rock solid. I think I will put some sort of marble or tile fa?ade over the top of the brickwork to hide all of the imperfections. I tried out some of the homebrew mortar and it is very nice to work with (very stickey). I had a little extra so I filled some large holes on the outside of the dome with it only to discover that the mortar cracked all to heck by the next day. I suspect this stuff does not do well when placed in thick layers. Fortunately none of the mortar joints that I used the stuff in were thicker than ?? and they did not crack at all.

A big thank you to Dino for helping out with the mix ratios and the reassurance that this mortar will be fine.

As a break from the work on the oven the family went into San Francisco to eat at Tony?s Pizza Napoletana (Tony's Pizza Napoletana- Welcome) for some authentic wood fired Napoletana pizza. Wow what a nice treat. If you are ever in the SFO area check it out they have some very tasty pizza?s. By the way Tony is the real deal he was the first non Neapolitan to win the best pizza margherita at the world pizza cup in Naples, Italy in 2007.

[wayner]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Matt, you mentioned you used a kit. Are you referring to FB's Pompeii Kits? My 36" oven FB kit only came with 2 bags of the High Heat Mortar. I'm guessing they are about 50 pound bags - like a smallish bag of concrete. I've only started cutting my soldiers and haven't started using the mortar yet, but I'm a bit curious of how many trips up to FB-Windsor or Harbison Walker I will need.

I've been up to Tony's 3 times now and it is REALLY good. I think he's doing a good job being authentic to all the different styles of pizza that he's doing. Did you notice that he runs Pizza classes for the home-cook as well as pro-cooks?

Any chance I can borrow an Italian father-in-law to get me back on my build?

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

Wayner, I did not buy the kit. I thought about it but I found that I could beat the cost locally due to the shipping. So far I have purchased 7 bags (154 lbs) of the RefMix mortar from FB and by the kit specifications that should be getting close to enough to complete the oven. As I said in my earlier post I am no where near completing the oven, hence I am going to switch to the home brew mortar as the cost is starting to get a bit out of hand with all this RefMix stuff. I will be very curious to know how far your 100 lbs of mortar gets you.

I did notice the classes but if I read things correctly they are $500 per person. I think I will try to figure it out on my own and with the help of the folks on this forum before I spend that kind of money on a class.

Next time my father-in is in your area I will have him look you up.

Keep posting updates on your progress it is nice to follow another bay area build.

[wayner]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

I'm wondering if the Refmix mortar is the same as the stuff they sent me. Mine came in these vinyl/burlap type bags and the stuff is grey and very fine, with no grit. Another builder had an issue with it and thought that it was straight fireclay. How would you describe your FB Refmix? It seems like mine is way off from the Homebrew recipe for the sheer fact that there's no sand in it.

RE: pizza. My brother-in-law just came back from 3 weeks in Italy and said that the pizza here that we've been taking him to is just as good. Mostly VPN places like SetteBello in Las Vegas and Salt Lake as well as A16 and Tony's in SF is just as consistently good.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

The RefMix I bought came in 22 lb bags and it has a dark grey color almost black when mixed with water. It has a good ammount of grit to it, sort of like tile grout. I saw the pictures of your build and it looks a lot like mortar to me. Now that it has set for a day or so can you pull the bricks appart. If so it may not be mortar. If you like I can mail you a sample of the RefMix that FB sent to me.

[mluttropp]

Re: Matt's WFO Build

I started to use the homebrew refmix today and it is a lot easier to use than the standard RefMix. I just hope it holds up as well. My goal is to take a few days off this week and next and close the dome before the end of the month. Keep your fingers crossed everyone.