Continuation of papavino's oven thread Brick Oven Photos Discuss Continuation of papavino's oven thread in the Good Background Information forums; Great progress! Looks like you may be eating pizza before September. How much did you end up paying for you ...

[jrparks]

Great progress! Looks like you may be eating pizza before September. How much did you end up paying for you bricks?
Cheers,

[papavino]

Thanks! The bricks ended up being $1.18. And the HeatStop 50 was $70 plus some change.

[jrparks]

Great price! I recommend You get a 5-gallon bucket and lid from HD to put your HeatStop in. It is to expensive to not protect!!!! I ended up using 3+ bags.
I have those steel studs if you decide you want them. I also have about 2/3 of a bag of Perlite you can have as well. Both should fit into a Civic!
Cheers,

[papavino]

John,
I have 4 of the HD buckets lying around. I've been using them for everything. I probably need to buy one or two more. I'm using one as my reservoir for the tile saw pump, one to keep my oven tools in, two were used to scoop concrete out of the wheel barrow and one of those two has some concrete set in the bottom of it. It has become a waste bucket.
I think I will take those steel studs. After you decided to do the igloo, it got me thinking about doing one, too, but I think I'm sticking to the gabled house enclosure. I'll set up some time to come grab them, probably next week. Thanks!

[papavino]

Well, I finally got around to mortaring the soldier course in place last night. I started to get worried at one point that I'd burn through a whole bag of Heat Stop, but I still have a bit left over after finishing. I need to put up some lights out there as it was getting too dark to see what we were doing at the end. I went out this morning to check and things look okay, but I already noticed two cracks in the mortar.
On another note, I'm pretty pleased with the brick chisel for making half bricks. It's really quick and easy. This way I can set up a jig on my tile saw to make the halves trapezoidal and cut down on the size of the inverted "V" in the mortar while another helper cranks out the half bricks.

[christo]

Very impressive start!!! I can't wait to see more!

I liked hearing about your experience with the tile saw and the chisel to break bricks. This might make for a good topic for the tools, techniques and tips area if you's like to take even more pics to document fully.

Christo

[papavino]

Here's the next batch of photos. I put the first ring in place on Sunday and put 4 bricks in place on the second ring yesterday, but had to stop as I need to make something to hold the bricks in place. The bricks now need to be at a 29 degree angle and it's difficult to keep them from sliding. But it's fun to watch it take shape. Also two bonus photos of the brick chisel in a before-after shot.

[papavino]

Finished the second ring last night.

[jrparks]

Looking Good! You better start thinking about fire wood

[jmhepworth]

I talked to the guy at heatstop this week. I've seen this advice before, but it's worth mentioning again. Only mix up the amount you can use in 20 minutes. Make sure the bricks are soaked well before using them or they will suck the moisture out of the mortar. Mix the mortar with cold water.

Joe