wedge brick

[stonylake]

one of our local refractory brick dealers sells arch and wedge shaped firebrick made by A P Green. has anyone used wedge brick? they are a little pricey, about twice the price, but there would be a lot less mortar in the joints. i have a wet saw, am i better off cutting my own brick?

[Jed]

Re: wedge brick

Stonylake,

You will have to make a personal choice. The good news is you can't go wrong either way.

If it is important to you to have the fire brick fit tight, you can invest the time to make that happen. Others before you have done the work and the ovens they built are beautiful.

Or

You can take the rectangular brick and form it into a dome oven and fill in all the voids with a high heat mortar.

Either oven will cook a great pizza or loaf of bread! and last a life time (or eight..)

Good luck with your build and keep us posted with pictures.

JED

[Johnny the oven man]

Re: wedge brick

The wedge would give you a 9" lining???? Bit of an overkill in my opinion.

[dmun]

Re: wedge brick

The wedge would give you a 9" lining???? Bit of an overkill in my opinion.

They are tapered from side to side, not the nine inch length. In the US, tapered firebricks are very expensive. If you are planning a cut-every-brick perfect fit dome, they will save you time and work, but there's no practical reason not to just angle your bricks with refractory mortar. You only see the inside of a finished dome, and a few little angle cuts on the visible face will go a long way toward looking like a perfect fit dome.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: wedge brick

arch and wedge shaped firebrick made by A P Green

if your not sure about your capabilities yet, you might want to buy them just for the arch, I did mine and as many others here, was not a mason.. I did well and as long as you take the time to think it out it will be great.. Do the cost math,,, That may help you make up our mind as well...
Cheers
Mark

[stonylake]

Re: wedge brick

thanks for the imput. i think i will end up using standard size firebrick and cut it... i may use tapered for my arch. i am going to pour my hearth slab tomorrow and be done outside for the season, i'll have a lot of time to cut brick inside this winter...

[MetroMulberries]

Re: wedge brick

Done for the season? Come on out and help me with my build! I'm a few steps behind you.
-PaloAlto

[stonylake]

Re: wedge brick

ok, winter is over here in Michigan... I set up my wet saw in the basement over the winter and have my floor, soldier course and about 60 wedge bricks cut. i have my FB board cut, and am ready to start assembling on the hearth stand that i finished last fall.. can someone help me with a couple of questions? when i put my FB board on the hearth, what do i use for mortar/leveler? when i put the floor over the FB board, what do i level it with? i'm going to mix my own mortar using 3:1:1:1

[dmun]

Re: wedge brick

If your support slab is reasonably flat, you don't need a leveling mixture, just lay down your board, and arrange your floor bricks on top of that. If the slab is not level then a mixture of fireclay and sand spread out dry will take care of any low spots that are causing wobble. I wouldn't mortar down either the board or the floor bricks.

[stonylake]

Re: wedge brick

thanks for the reply. i am going to pick up fireclay lime and sand today. what grade of silica should i look for?

[olddude]

Re: wedge brick

depends on how big your gaps are if your mixing your own as did get one small bag of fine sand use that on your small gaps then use the regular sand on the rest just make sure it's clean no dirt

kinda works like this the cement bonds the sand (rocks ) together
so if you're joint's are big and you have fine sand this will be weaker and might crack
ie more rock's to hold together

but if your rocks (grands of sand ) are so big they can't get in or are to few to get a good bond

hope this helps

[stonylake]

Re: wedge brick

thanks, i think i'll get a bag of #30 silica and see how it works. i got a broken bag of heatstop 50 from the brick yard, but it think i'll use that on the dome after it's done. i was going to go to Lake Michigan and grab a couple of buckets of beach sand, but one of the other builders thought the grain was too big..