Vent and dome connection

[nheins]

hello everyone. I am well underway on building a 36" oven and am about to start the brick dome. I have checked on the instructions and a lot of posts but i dont see instructions on a clear way to do the connection from vent bricks to dome bricks. Some people do a vent arch with full 4.5x9" bricks and then cut the dome bricks to meet that. Others bring the vent bricks into the chamber a little more and carve out the 36" angle into them. Trying to figuire out what way is easiest?
Where do you start the vent arch bricks, in terms of relatio to the dome.
I have also seen various opening sizes for vent arch and am looking to go with 18" wide x 12" high at the high point of arch and bring that down to 10" at sides? too low or should it be a little higher?
There is also some conflicting info about the actual chimney opening. I am going to use a 6" metal chimney double wall ( oven is outside). I am wondering is it best to do a tapered opening in brick from large at bottom to smaller at the top where chimney connects or is a sqare hole bigger that the chimney size ok?

Thanks for any help anyone can give as i just want to get it right.

Cheers, Nick

[BenKeith]

I have not built a brick oven, I did a 36" castable refractory a couple years ago but I will give you some lessons learned from that. As for opening size for the oven, mine is 18 1/2"W x 10"H. I used a 10"x 4" rectangle to 6" round galvanized transition for a mold to make my vent. Thinking it would not be a problem, I just left it in there. Wrong move, within a year or so, it started dropping rust so I had to get it out. Not an easy task after the fact. Another huge problem, 4 inches in not enough opening length, I wish I had gone with 6 inches. During initial firing there' not enough draw to pull all the smoke up the vent and a huge amount comes out the front. To prevent this I had to make a door with opening at the bottom. Once it's hot there is no problem.
I would think 12" would be a bit high.
The tunnel going into mine is a couple of inches larger that the oven opening so it will have a surface for the door to go against. I don't remember exactly but my dome is about 151/2 to 16 1/2 inches high inside.

[FrankMAFi]

Hey Nick,

I'm literally stumped on this right now,
Hoping you figured this out and and can help me out ! Thanks dude.

Frank

[JRPizza]

Hey Nick, I just saw your question from mid-July and see nobody that has built a brick vent has responded to you. Where are you at in your build - did you forge ahead or are you still planning?
You are asking about vent to dome transition but I am thinking you first need to figure out the oven inner arch to dome - is that where you are?