Welcome to the new Forno Bravo Forum Forum Guidelines Discuss Welcome to the new Forno Bravo Forum in the Good Background Information forums; Originally Posted by james The stand was fabricated by a local metal shop. James James - The oven used at ...

[Les]

Originally Posted by james

The stand was fabricated by a local metal shop.

James

James - The oven used at Ramekins, Mary said it was a prototype. What product did that evolve into? It wasn't quite a dome inside and it looked pretty thin on the insulation.

Les...

[james]

I love that oven!

It was a prototype oven for two concepts. First, we were testing out the concept of a pre-built oven on a metal stand, and second, if we wanted to see if we could make it light enough to be easily moved around for festivals, catering, etc.

The first concept worked, and it evolved to become the Toscana Series ovens -- which are pre-assembled Casa series ovens. The second concept did not work out as well. Try as we might, we could never come up with a good way of moving the oven using a trailer and setting it up for catering. That's why it is permanently in place at Ramekins. Still, everything we learned helped The Fire Within and other companies that are building trailer ovens using FB ovens.

The last part that was interesting is that the Casa oven we used had been dropped by a shipping company. Really dropped. I wanted to see just how much you could repair a badly damaged oven and how well it would last. We did all the repairs with Refmix -- and the oven is holding up really well.

Everything is an experiment. :-)

James

[elyryder]

James,

James,

Thanks for the prompt response. I know I'm going to enjoy this. Do you know of anyone fabricating a base with ipe, an extremely dense and strong Brazilian hardwood? I'm confident it could carry the loads.

Ely

[dmun]

Wood bases are a bad idea. Wood moves and swells with temperature and humidity, and ovens are heavy and rigid. People who haven't built ovens tend to underestimate their weight.

Your base choices are solid welded metal, or masonry. I've also seen them built into terraced hillsides, but that's a different topic

[Tony Totten]

hey guys,
Also feel like chertupper. cos I dont know how to post a new thread!
Wanna post a new thread cos my pizzas keep sticking to the peel.
TT

[elyryder]

James,

I'm working on the design of a steel pan to support the oven. The 63"x57" pan will be bolted to a frame made from 2x6 ipe timbers or 4x4 ipe posts. The bottom of the pan is 3/16 steel plate with 3/16x2x2 angles on the perimeter, braced below with 2x2 angles across the middle in each direction. There will be a 3/16" 2x2 wire mesh tack welded to the top of the angles to reinforce the vermiculite concrete which will fill the pan to a depth of 4". Fire bricks will be placed over the vermiculite concrete base and a 36" Pompeii oven built over that.

I would appreciate any comments from you and from anyone with an engineering background to evaluate the structure. I have drawings and an ipe span table (I couldn't figure out how to attach them to this post). I believe the completed structure will weigh between 2,000 and 2,500 pounds. The load will be about 100 psf. I understand that vermiculite concrete has a compression strength of about 100 psi.

Thanks,

Ely

[dmun]

Didn't I just answer this question two messages up? Why wood?

[elyryder]

I believe this is a different question. I'm only asking about the sufficiency of the pan. Please answer if you can, considering the legs and side rails being made with steel rather than ipe.

Thanks

[elyryder]

Hi, I'm now proposing an all-steel base, 3-1/2" x 3-1/2" square legs, 40" high, sides 2" x 6" C-channel, 8.2# per foot, (approximately .25" thick), with the legs of the channels facing in, and a steel plate 63-3/4" x 57-3/8" across the bottom, welded to the bottom channel leg. My question is how thick should the steel plate be? Is 1/8" enough. Thanks for your patience.

Ely

[dmun]

I don't know the answer to this question. I went to look at the FornoBravo metal stand:

and it doesn't have metal tray at all.
Maybe James can jump in here?