Bellingham Bread Oven Brick Oven Photos Discuss Bellingham Bread Oven in the Good Background Information forums; I got home from work last Friday and felt inspired to get the dome up. Now I work rather slowly ...

[janprimus]

I got home from work last Friday and felt inspired to get the dome up. Now I work rather slowly and methodically and with a lever and a few metal pipes I can move just about anything. I was able to get the dome off the table in the back yard up into my truck all by myself. with a small pile of 2x4s and 4x4s I wa able to get it up high enough for a couple of us to roll it off my truck on top of a couple of 4x4s. See: http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/loadingdome.jpg and http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/domeintruck.jpg
It was quite a chore getting it into place as the fellow that was helping me had his own ideas so we had to stop and talk about it a few times to make sure he didnt kill himself or me, but we got it into place! http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/w...20backside.jpg and http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/w...ont%20side.jpg I have already been burning small curing fires in it as I am not going to be plastering it with anything. Now comes the insulation and the copper for the dome. This should be fun. I am going to be wrapping it in kaowool and then using a rigidizer on it and it is just so darn exciting, I cant stand it.
Peace
Chad

[janprimus]

This question was emailed me, I thought it good to post. If there are more specific questions to ask, ask them. There are no secrets here.

Originally Posted by Gareth

Greetings, I am looking to build a wall similar to yours with stone and brick. I am new to this type of work. How did you cut the stones to give a flat surface for mounting? Did you purchase them that way?
Gareth

Hi Gareth, this is something that should be answered in the forum so I will post it there as well. None of the rocks I have have been cut. They have all been chosen and used just the way they were when we found them. They all have to be set in a bed of mortar. The trick is having the rock mortar thicker than the mortar used for bricks. Cutting rocks is tough and expensive. A fun part of the whole challenge is the puzzle aspect of the whole thing. It is a lot of work collecting them yourself, but very satisfying. It is probably cheaper to just buy them, but this is more fun.
Chad

[Hal Landvoigt]

Chad,
I'm wondering where you got the precast dome? Is it a manufacturer who keeps them in stock or was this a custom job?

Hal

[james]

Hi Guys,

As Forno Bravo sponsors our forum, I am hoping we can limit our discussion of precast ovens to the Forno Bravo ovens. Of course if you already have another oven we are available to help with your installation.
Thanks.
James

[janprimus]

Being sensitive to that, I answered offline. I think your products look great James and I for one appreciate your sponsoring the forum. Mine just fell into my lap so...
Peace
Chad

[james]

Chad,
Thanks for that. Forno Bravo and the forum have both helped lots of owners who bought other ovens through various means with their installation and cooking -- which we love doing.
James

[janprimus]

Originally Posted by james

Chad,
Thanks for that. Forno Bravo and the forum have both helped lots of owners who bought other ovens through various means with their installation and cooking -- which we love doing.
James

And it is that kind of service that will set you apart from the others out there. This is a good forum and it offers a lot of help for folks that want to do this sort of thing.
Thanks
Chad

[janprimus]

This weekend I insulated the dome and sprayed it with the rigidizer liquid. I also took a couple layers of the cal sil board and cut it and shaped it to fit the large flat on the top so as to cover that part up. I think it is working OK. http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/Calsiltopper.jpg It turned a lovely seafoam green when I spratyed the rigidizer on the white calsil insulation batts. http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/i...0rigidized.jpg I also decided to bring the bricks from the base up more to at least the top of the hearth level. That does a couple of things for me. One, it takes some of the legginess out of the dome which would have looked odd in my estimation. http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/chad/b...0up%20side.jpg I have to start looking at counter tops now. Has anyone here done the out door countertop thing and if so what materials did you choose and for what reason? I am leaning toward polished granite, but I am not sure.

[james]

I like slab granite. It doesn't have seams, so it's easy to keep clean and it look nice.

For an outdoor kitchen, I think you cna go with pre-finished, pre-cut slabs. You can find them in the Bay Area. They come in 25 1/2 deep (1 1/2 bullnose overhang) x 96". You cut it with a diamond place and glue them in place. It is not as exact as custom cut granite from a single slab (which lines up in thickness and color), but looks great outside.

James

[christo]

I have some slab granite that was given to me that I plan to use. It seems to hold up better than the marble. I had both in my previous outdoor grill/kitchen.

I have also seen some pictures of really nice concrete countertops done by a guy in New Zealand. He made a form out of masonite and filled them with black river rock and cement. When pulled from the form, a diamond polisher was used to smooth and polish the tops. The photos I saw looked awesome. If anyone is interested I can email him and see if it is ok to post his pictures.

Christo