Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Thanks Lburou and Oacar,
I am pretty keen to get a bit done as I am on leave at the moment.
I still have my friend from Melbourne visiting, he has been a great help, if I need more bricks he gets them if I need more motar he mixes it and then he cleans up as we go. He has been also filling any joints that need to be filled etc. He is a good freind of more than 30 years and my Wife and I love it when comes up to stay. He is retired at only 59 so he is quite active, he loves our cooking, the sea food that is plentiful up here and of course a few beers and wine, just like my Wife and I do.
Anyway back to the build, I now have the door arch completed.
Cheers Doug

[OscarA]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

looking great Doug I love the thermo couplings for the floor it'll make things easier for you.

[Lburou]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Doug, you seem pretty serious about getting that 48 inch monster in service ASAP....Great progress and well designed

Looking good!

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Thanks Dave,
High Dome as I want a big entry that is 575 wide and 365 high big enough to put a horse in!!!!! just kidding. I have just completed the arch and will load up pics soon.
Regards Doug

[cobblerdave]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Hi
Looks great! bet cha stoked with the results. One question though.... High Dome or Low Dome?

Regards Dave

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Take all the hearth bricks off and then set them back again on a bed of fire clay and water using the 10mm notched trowel then tapped them all down level. I Inserted another 2 thermo couplings this time in the actual hearth bricks one 10mm from the top and one 10mm from the bottom of the centre hearth brick. Hopefully this will give me a reading of the surface and the bottom of the hearth bricks that should indicate saturation point. And finaly the first course of bricks are layed in high temp motar.

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Set out the hearth in a herringbone pattern and used a template that I had previously cut out of 12 mm ply to mark out the hearth. The next thing was to cut the bricks to shape, which was made easy by the brick saw that I borrowed from a kind neighbour who happens to be working Interstate for the next few months ( Second Christmas )

Cheers Doug

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Christmas and New Year over, we had a great time but back to the oven build. Everything arrived before Xmaz as planned fire bricks, insulating bricks, high temp motar and insulation etc. I set out the insulation bricks, that are 75mm thick and set them on a bed of sand, fire clay and cement and used a 10 mm notched trowel to give an air space over the suspended slab to help with insulation. I also set up a thermo coupling between the insulation bricks and the slab to measure temps. Next set out the hearth.

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Boxed up the slab over the weekend ready to pour on monday. Well the weather was great and we spent Yesterday pouring the suspended slab. My freind from Melbourne was a great help he mixed and I poured, having to lift every bucket was a bit telling but we got it finished and now a rest from the physical work while the slab cures over Christmas.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Guys
Give you a great trick for the formwork....Use a battery drill and long chipboard screws.... can't knock the framework out of plumb like hammering nails in. Strong... you bet.....easy to pull your forms apart at the end
No need to drill them completly in so you can find the ends easy only danger is don't pour any concrete in the ends and don't tear you shorts the missus i'll be on you case.
Regards

Dave

[OscarA]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Great work, I like the way you have your supports for the top slab. I think I will do something very similar as it looks very sturdy and easy to disassemble once the slab is set.
Keep the photos coming.

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Formed up rebar tied down and ready to box up for the slab, which will be about 110mm thick. I hope to pour the slab on Monday, as I finish work for the year tomorrow and have a friend arriving from Melbourne on Saturday to spend Xmas with us, he does not know that I have this little job for him. If we can get it poured on Monday it can cure over Xmas. Hopfully the bricks, motar and Insulation will arrive before Xmas may be tomorrow even. (Apart from the cost of the bricks, insulation bricks and insulation blanket the freight from Sydney to Coffs Harbour alone is $314.) Anyway I can be ready to start the insulating layer and dome some time just after Xmas. I will have to wait though untill my Daughter from Melbourne goes home on the 30th Dec as I will want to spend as much time with her as possible before she heads home, we only see each other once or twice per year.

[Karangi Dude]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Hey OscarA and Dave,
Thanks for your interest in my build, that's what makes this "Forum" so good.
1200mm or 47 1/4inch is not really that much bigger than a 1100 or (43 1/4) 42inch. The stand is only 200mm longer and 200mm wider than the most common size of 42inch. Anway we have decided to go a little larger than normal as we will be catering for a good number of peolple, and we are considering may be setting up our place as B&B.
We have access to lots of wood and we intend to use the WFO to cook a lot of our meals as well as smoking meats drying fruit and vegetables (that we grow on our property) may be Beef Jerky and of course baking bread, cakes etc. and lots of slow cooked meat and poultry. You may have noticed the stand is a little different to norm but I didn't want the whole base for strorage I only wanted a small area for wood so I made 2 wood boxes 600wx800d they will be easy to clean and who knows what sort of critters can get in the in the large open style stands. I have ran a wall down the middle of the stand it will serve 2 purposes 1 as a back to the wood boxes and 2 to split the the weight of the oven and enclosure. Also the wood boxes are on the side where they can easily be filled with a wheel barrow and out of sight, I don't like the look of half filled messy looking wood boxes. Even though the stand is larger than normal with the wall down the middle the supporting slab only has a span of 600mm. I bent over 900mm lengths of rebar then set them in place before core filling. The second pic is a rough layout of the rebar.
Cheers Doug

[cobblerdave]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Ovent

Building one of these pizza ovens is a lot like building a house:-
When you get the slab done you think to yourself.... yep that looks about right
Then you get the walls up the thing suddenly looks....well, thats looking a bit bigger than I first thought....
Then you get the roof on you suddenly discover Heh...... thats Bloody huge!!
Mate I'll be watching ya built this one a 42' ovens quite big but a 48" is really big can't say I heard of one....perhaps I'll check the commercial builds

regards dave

[OscarA]

Re: Karangi Dude's 48inch Oven

Looking good. I'm watching with great interest.