Bacterium's 2nd build

[Bacterium]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Ok, overall oven plan starting from slab is:

-Dual course brick stand(outer course conceals the inner course supporting base layers)
-Top slab 100mm reinforced concrete
- 100mm vermicrete
-Insulating board? Not 100% sure on this
-Oven floor 1100mm internal diameter. Finished floor level from ground (height) at present I'm thinking around 1100mm or 1200mm.
-floor and dome bricks will be 2nd hand fire bricks I got - 75mm x 110m x 225mm, obviously these will be angle cut in half for dome bricks and good fit
-Looking to thermally separate inner & outer dome arches
-Flue would be about 6 or 8 inches stainless steel, double skin where it passes through eave/roof
-Dome insulation with 1inch fire blanket and 4inches vermicrete, then render coat with waterproofing as exposed dome

......sure to make changes on the way

[Bacterium]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Been busy with house stuff but managed to start laying out my base bricks. The plan is to have an outer course which goes all the way up level with the oven floor. Then inside will be an inner course which will support the oven upper slab/vermicrete/oven floor. Effectively this will conceal the sides of the upper slab/vermicrete/oven floor layers.

I have another idea. Well I have a nice outdoor entertaining area which has a great view over the hills and also a very open yard, so to put in a prep bench and build a larger shelter over the dome will impact it to much. Well I was looking at wood carts on here as I was planning my under oven area. Then I got thinking, why not build a pull out wood cart that functions as a wood holder, prep bench and also a beer/bar fridge. So pull it out when you have pizza and when finished the whole thing push back under the oven. All you see once it's pushed in is the fridge door (basically under the oven opening).

I've already built a pull out storage/kitchen area for my camper trailer. So with some tube steel and some castors it could work.
Pretty much it would be 1.6m long by 850mm wide
Anyone else had a crack at this?

[Bacterium]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Not much happening on oven......got the mud to do the base bricks but too wet the last few days

Speaking of drinking-when I had my last oven, another oven mate and I used to do a "turkey shoot"
Basically I would mix up about 5kg of ciabatta dough and would have a Sunday afternoon bread baking mission, the trick is every time you load a batch of bread in the oven we would sit back and shoot back a few turkeys - Wild Turkey (or Makers Mark).
After we did about 3 loads in the oven you start to hit the low tide mark in the bottle..........it's great driving home (well the wife drove) and the car smells of fresh bread- had more bread than we could poke a shot glass at!!!!

O yeah great for getting rid of the Sunday Arvos "back to work Monday" blues

[Cookie Monster]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Ahhh the old silver pillow. Takes me back to my younger days

Had many a comfy night's sleep on them. Even though I was in the gutter out on the road....

Great idea on the time capsule although my stand will be brick. I will have to find somewhere else to hide the empties.

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Well mine have a few full of emptie XXXX stubbies with the carton on the top.....recon though I'm not the only one to do that either

Correct.... I managed to insert a few empties into the block voids in order to provide a 'time capsule' for those who may dismantle the oven and stand in the next century.
John

[cobblerdave]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Gudday
Well I'd better "Fes up" you know how the forno plans have a base of dry stacked block then you core fill ever secound hole, puttin your old cement bags in the empty ones. Well mine have a few full of emptie XXXX stubbies with the carton on the top.....recon though I'm not the only one to do that either!

Regards Dave

[wotavidone]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

The trouble with goon bags, also known as the silver pillow, is that very few of them contain inferior wine. Given that they contain eminently drinkable plonk, at very attractive prices, and one cannot see how much one has consumed, one tends to drink rather more than is good for one, to ones eventual detriment.
I for one, have not bought a cask of wine since the memorable Anzac day weekend when I consumed a 4 litre cask of claret followed by a 2 litre cask of Morris Oak Cask Port. I would probably have thought this OK, if I had not then proceeded to fall into the bonfire. Twice. The first time was an accident, the second sheer stupidity. The next day, after bringing me a coffee and a couple of nurofen plus, my dear wife said those fatefulwords, "we need to talk". The upshot of that "talk" was that it was 4 years, to the day, before I consumed another alcoholic drink.
Today, of course, I have just inserted the very last brick, the keystone, in my dome, so naturally, I am imbibing a celebratory glass of wine.
Regards,
Mick

[Bacterium]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Being that the weather is cooling down I've changed back to red wine

.......dare I admit on here I have even been drinking goon bag
aka silver pillow........ Premium range Yalumba Cab Sav tho

[Cookie Monster]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Damon,

Will you still be using the same 50:50 mix of Coopers and Cascade for this build?

Cheers,

Matt

[Johnny the oven man]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Hi Damon,
Littlehampton Brick sell fire clay in two size bags. The largest is 20kg for $110

Cheers
Craig

We have 25kg bags for $25, so look aound and do some shopping

[cobblerdave]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Gudday Damon
Coupla things you might investigate
Soldier course.... many builds now tend not to use a soldier course... a ring of full upright bricks set outside the ring of hearth bricks. They use instead a sailor course.... a half brick set directly on the hearth bricks.
Check out Karangi Dudes build and how he gets the bricks of the dome to marry into the entrance brickwork... in fact the whole build is a great read.

Regards Dave

[Bacterium]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Mick - I like your drive to do it on a budget, my first build was the same. Was in the middle of others stuff (youngest was still a baby) so money for a pizza oven didnt seem highest on the financial administrators mind.


Hi Dave and Neill...........yeah basically I'm still in the north east burbs of Adelaide, have moved Further out, to the outskirts to get a bigger block, so yes built new and moved in just before Christmas. Got just enough space for a pizza oven, veggie patch, shed/garage, pool for the kids........and a decent pantry which houses my mixer, cheese making gear, pasta machine......ahhhhh. Nothing huge but plenty of gums and the kookaburras have a good laugh in the late Arvos.

Neill, thanks for the offer....... Plan is to build the stand out of house bricks (the builder left for me) so while I'm doing that over the next month (still got all the other new house stuff to do outside) will get on here and thrash out my plan and let the forum give it the litmus test to keep me on track.

I picked up a brand new BT brick saw which been I've been cutting it's teeth on retaining wall blocks and pavers so far. My aim is to spend more time on the dome......how cool are the threads on the IT?......gotta have one of them.......I had to do my last dome with a sand cap half way up in one day then pull it all out and climb in and clean up.

For the dome bricks this time, my bro got some fire bricks from and old house fireplace. He used them in his oven build and they have good retention. He's got 300 for me so will go over them soon....so far the plan is coming together.

Craig, might have to pop into Littlehampton for a look, my bro reckons they are worth a look around too.

All good.....great forum..... I recommend it to whoever gets serious about a pizza oven.........if they can't handle trying to digest a quarter of info on here they should probably try a bit of knitting instead....!!!!!!.........gee I miss the fresh bread from my oven, supermarket copies sometimes seem less interesting than the bag hey!!!!

[nissanneill]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Yeh, Hi Damon,
good to have you back on board again.
I still have I think 2 bags of fireclay left over from my build if you need some. Thermal Ceramics I believe, still sell it but no idea of cost. They were close to your Welland location but still at Beverley. Where have you built/moved to?

Cheers.

Nneill

[cobblerdave]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Gudday Damon
Welcome back... must find you original build and check it out...were are you now? WA?

Regards Dave

[wotavidone]

Re: Bacterium's 2nd build

Damon,
Thanks for the swift reply. I'm greatly heartened by the use of ordinary portland cement and sand. I'm hopeful that, if that sort of mix stands up for 4 years, mine will stand up as long as I do. I'm 51, so it only has to last about 20 years.
Many of the old Italians up here in Port Pirie, home of the biggest population of Molfettese dialect speakers outside of Molfetta, say that the mortar only needs to be ordinary brickies mortar with half the Portland cement replaced by lime. (Molfetta is a port on the Adriatic sea, about 240km/150 miles straight across the "leg" from Naples.)
So I am using a sort of modified FB homebrew mix.
I got clay from the local wetlands, used a paint stirrer in a drill to mix it to milk consistency with water, decanted it leaving the little bit of sand and gravel behind, and poured it through a seive to take out sticks, roots, dead bugs etc. Then I drained it through an old bedsheet.
The result was a very clean clayish looking material, which my consultant geologist reckons is probably a "silty clay". It doesn't assay very high alumina, but when you think about it, does it matter? Even if it was say 50% alumina, it would still only improve the alumina content of your mortar by 1/12, say 8%.
My sand is leftovers from a housebuilding job. I had to buy the Portland cement and the lime
My "bricks" are actually a variety of pavers. I accumulated them, for a total cost of $35, before I got educated by this forum. Having them all in my hands, and being somewhat tight with money I decided to use them anyway.
My problem was that I would have spent so much money buying real firebricks and fire clay that I might as well have bought a ready-made oven. So I decided to proceed on the DIY route, provided it worked out very cheap.
I'm nowhere near $400 yet, and I reckon I'll just about complete the oven for that sort of money. A 600mm Bunnings oven costs $1000, and it doesn't look very good to me, so I'm pushing on.
I did test all the bricks I used though - put some in a fire to see what happened if I burned them and let them cool. They got a bit black, but that was it.
So then I got some and put them over a butane stove, got a measured 480 C on the face against the flames and about 280 on the other side. I actually used the ones I burnt in the fire, and got them hot enough to burn the carbon off. Again they didn't break nor spall. So I decided to chance it.
Of course it might all just fall down and embarrass the crap out of me.
I reckon a bigger reason to insulate than heat up times is that the brickwork will cool slower, and I reckon that'd be a good thing.
Good luck with your new build.
Regards,
Mick