gapes in dome brick

[cobblerdave]

well this is my problem or manybe not.
I used a brick bolster to cut my bricks and a plywood form to hold everthing up but it has left me with some large gapes in the dome brick. Now don't get me wrong the oven works just fine holds its heat cooks great food and certainly doesn't look like falling down or anything< I just would like to fill in those gapes.
I crawled inside the oven on day(Yes its big black and creepy in there) and rubbed a bit of morter into a section where I push the fire from the middle. Looks worse morter sticks to the bricks and if I do it all over I can just see the sand falling out over the pizza.
My only thought at the moment is to fill a piping bag full of homebrew firemorter and filling the gapes that way.
Should I just leave it? Any thoughts out there?

[brickie in oz]

Re: gapes in dome brick

It wont fall down, my concern would be if any insulation could fall through onto the food.

There could also be a heat escaping issue.

[cobblerdave]

Re: gapes in dome brick

The gapes are in the brick face not the rear trust me thats all what I could see when buildin it. The use of a plywood form doesn"t allow you to see the face of the brick as you lay them all the gapes in the back are filled and a 25mm/ 1''layer of fieproof hombrew went over that.

Regards Dave

[The Goose]

Re: gapes in dome brick

From the way you explain it Dave, I would assume the gaps would be as a result of the angles formed when assembling rectangle brick ends (faces) into the circular shape of the oven. The very fact it is a dome would indicate structural integrity and if gaps were not evident on the outer surface area of the dome, heat loss and insulation falling through would not be an issue. The only area that I could see that may affect your oven is the interruption of the flame 'front' by the gaps (ie read efficiency of oven - laminar versus turbulent 'flow') but this would be ever so minimal you probably would be unable to measure its effect.
My advice (opinion) - fire the oven, look at the pizza (not the gaps), grab a beer and enjoy....
Cheers Doug

[Neil2]

Re: gapes in dome brick

"oven works just fine holds its heat cooks great food"

That is all that counts.