Ravensdale Oven

[james]

Only wet with the Mortars

I don't think you you need to wet your floor bricks when you set them on the wet sand/fireclay mixture. The soaking is used to keep your bricks from sucking the moisture out of your mortars, to where they dry too fast and crack.

Gently tap, tap, tap to get the floor as flat and smooth as you can -- and if you get something out of line, you can always hit it with a sander. You want to get it to where your pizza peel won't hit and stick on a high brick.
James

[El Puaco]

Ravensdale Oven

I'm right in the middle of the floor building process and finding out how to do more things that I couldn't have imagined when I decided to embark on this mission. It's a good thing the IT Manager (AKA Mrs. Baby) has a better eye for herringbone than I do. I could have been at the layout a lot longer. I had trouble finishing the bookends that we built in woodshop in Jr. High School. IT Manager says that between us we're a whole person.

Question: Do I want to soak the bricks before I plant them on the fire clay mixture? I know it's the thing to do when building the dome but can't remember if I ever saw anything about during this part of the process.

Slowly working our way along.

Mike

[El Puaco]

Got it. The thing that confused me was the Pompei instructions that showed a chalk line stripe across the notch marks to center the blocks. It seems like wetter would be easier to level. I'm the proud new owner of a notch trowel. Gathering up tools that I'll never use again.

[dmun]

wet

it's usually put down wet, and trowled with a notched trowel. The ridges in the mud let you tap the bricks gently to level them.

[El Puaco]

I'm starting the floor for my 42" oven tomorrow. I have a question regarding the fire clay/sand mixture that goes under the firebrick. Am I correct in assuming that it is put down and let dry before installing the bricks? My first thought was that the bricks would put on to the wet mud so you could level them as you went. But after some thought it appears that the dried mixture would be soft (crumbly) enough to let some gentle persuasion with a rubber hammer and maybe a 2x4 for stability to move the bricks into position.

I'm really enjoying looking at the various ovens in progress now! Especially Drake's because he's a month or so ahead. Maybe I'll go to school on his oven. I really like those pictures of the herringbone floor. That's my immediate focus.

I'll try to have some pictures of the floor process soon. Most of you have already seen yours and quite a few others so I'll try to come up with a new wrinkle at least in the photography.

Thanks guys,

Mike