A New Tool: The Dome Claw

[Sten]

The Dome Claw is a homemade, inexpensive, easy-to-fabricate tool that unobtrusively supports bricks while building a bread oven dome.

It’s explained in the following Youtube video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HJFl8PeVQ7o

[Julison]

Awesome, thanks for sharing. I will try this out this weekend.

[Julison]

Stem, the claw works magnificently. Easy to put in place and easy to remove. I made mine from pieces of 1” X 1/8” aluminum. My next batch will be from steel - it is more forgiving if you need to rebrand to adjust angles. I broke some by trying to “adjust” the angle on them. Thanks again

[Sten]

Julison, I’m glad the claw worked so well for you. Thank you for taking the time to comment. It was fun to hear that it helped. Enjoy your oven. I’ve finished the curing process on mine, and we’re going to make our first WFO pizza this weekend.

[cbailey]

Sten, thank you for the idea. I had more success with steel from Simpson Strong Ties. I found them to have a bit of "give" with a spring effect. They came in handy on my seventh course. I'm making more as I go after the more vertical courses this weekend.

[Dwatkins]

Sten,
What a fantastic idea. Very much appreciate the help.

[antzvu]

This is a wonderful idea! I'm going to try it on my build!

[rwiegand]

Clever idea. I thought about a bunch of different schemes to hold bricks in place, but I just kept adding rings to the dome and waiting for a problem but it never happened. Even the near vertical bricks at the very top stuck in place after being held with the IT for as long as it took to butter the next brick. I used Heatstop 50 mortar, perhaps it is stickier.

[Oceanrover]

Very cool idea, thank you!

[obertson]

I live in Ottawa Ontario. I've been confining houses here since I was 14 and there's one thing I never comprehended. About each team in Ottawa outlines a house with a cutting apparatus. From the main day on location, I never have gotten that or knew about it. Is this okay to use a chainsaw? and How do I sharpen a chainsaw blade? check a site but still confused.

[MnDude45]

Great idea! Thank you for sharing

[Chops]

I made "24" of these over the week -end. The first few where a disaster ? Why ? You can NOT bend 1/8" aluminum in a shop bender without snapping the metal. Hmm! Made a few adjustments on the Bender & still no sucess ? Then tried a piece in the shop vise & it bent with a hammer, It Worked !! just as it should have. Left me wondering why it wouldn't bend in a bender machine ? After a few more trial runs I figured it out !!! (IF) you install the Aluminum straps into the shop bender & crank them a "LITTLE At A TIME" . they will bend & comform to your measurements. You just can't do them fast ! The aluminum needs time to conform it's shape.

[Ken.thai]

Very clever, thanks for sharing!

[Shawnr]

I used something like that when doing the dome. Wish I had seen that before I did the dome. I had 1/8" SS tig wire in the shop so used that but the flat bar would have been way better. Thanks for posting.