John's 42inch Aussie WFO

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Nice looking saw john,, You may talk yourself into keeping it by the time your done with it,, I thought I was gonna sell the cement mixer I bought,,,(not) to cool to have it when you need it... You could consider renting it out to other oven builders,,(probably too much liability though) any ways, looking good so far,, keep the good work and the pics coming
Mark

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Thanks Mark I guess I will see at the end if the finances are okay i guess you just never know!

I also began laying the Cooking floor but I seem to have an issue that the floor has up to 2mm variance from the brick next to it. It seems that the fire bricks are not identical in height.

I assume most people have come across this? How do you solve this as I was not going to set the floor but leave it to float on the insulation bricks.

If I have to set these in place what is the procedure/mix and is there a link on this forum I can follow?

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

firebrocks all have minor variance in size, you can do two things

1. for the height difference, if you cant pound them down enough you can grind or sand them level

2. space between the bricks will fill with ashes and you'll never see it again

Cheers,
Mark

[Alter ego]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

John,

Please let me know when you have finished with your saw and if you are considering selling it. I would certainly be interested in buying it from you.

I am still doing my formwork for the hearth slab as as I will be away for the 1st week of the school holidays It is unlikely that I will get much done on my oven in the next few weekends. I could be far enough behind you in my build to follow on with cutting bricks.

Do not listen to the other advice in the forum about hoarding power tools and locking them up in a dark shed un-used.

Paul

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Thanks Paul. I'll keep you in mind when it comes time to sell, the down side is that hoarding power tools is unfortunately my middle name!!

[nissanneill]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Hey John,
who is the contact in SA for your saw?
It looks pretty good value for the dollars and worth putting this contact in the memory bank for Ron, (ie.later on).

Neill

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Hi Neill,

The company is AR Scaffolding located in SA. My contact was Eric Green but he works out of their QLD branch.

cheers

[3G_]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Their tile saw would be nice, easy to use for all the angles in the WFO. Ill call for a price Monday. Cheers for the heads up

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Hi 3G

I think they were around the 1K mark, Let me know how you go and good luck

cheers

John

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Started cutting out the cooking floor over the long weekend and also the soldier coarse.

Things went well and I have a few bits and pieces to touch up before I start mortaring things in place

You can see below (item 3) the soldier coarse was to be cut to the angle provided by the "Indispensable tool" but My brother in law and I have decided that this will provide us with an inaccurate reading as the center point of the oven floor to the top of the angle bar has a variance of 2 inches.

We ended up taking the angle provided by the rod instead.

I have decided that rather than weld the nut fitting to the center of the angle bar in photo 3 it will be welded to the top of the angle instead to provide a more accurate reading

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Nice work and a nice looking saw !!!!

[3G_]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Nice one John.

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

Cuts like butter!!!

[John K]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

It's been a while since I have had a chance to work on the oven but made some progress over the weekend

I bedded down the floor in the end as I had to much of a height variance between bricks and that helped with getting the floor as flat as possible.

I also placed a slight angle towards the front of the chimney landing in case any rain ever came in so this would not enter into the oven. The actual dome cooking surface is perfectly level

after placing the soldier coarse in place I was not to happy with the size of the external gap between bricks so I tapered every second soldier by 7mm total of around 15mm off each brick. This has halved the external gap.

I also shaped the 1st arch brick which was not as hard as I expected so I will try to cut some more next weekend.

I have a question around whether to glue down the Soldier coarse to the insulation bricks. What are the pros and cons of doing this? I do not have an issue of leveling it out with hight temp mortar but rather what is best practice?

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: John's 42inch Aussie WFO

I have a question around the whether to glue down the Soldier coarse to the insulation bricks. What are the pros and cons of doing this?

I built my dome on top of the firebrick floor, I used a very slight layer of mortar under the brick, My joints werent as tight as yours though,

My thought, All bricks in the oven will move due to heat and expansion, some evenly, some not. Im sure I have cracks inside the oven I cant see,, It is unavoidable, as I see on many builds we have put a fefmix or heat stop render over the dome.. so what im sayin, is its all good whether you do it or not is more a matter of personal choice....I Think either way would be fine, and dont forget that the dome also holds bricks in place by compression as well as render/refmix.. As well when you vermicrete the dome you are basically cementing the bricks in place even further,, Hope I have cleared this up some, rather than confused you
Cheers
Mark