Michigan WFO Brick Oven Photos Discuss Michigan WFO in the Good Background Information forums; The flue tile taper was a pain to do. It was cut with the angle grinder you see in the ...

[dmun]

The flue tile taper was a pain to do. It was cut with the angle grinder you see in the background. The stuff in VERY hard, and hard to cut. In the end, I think some kind of transition is a good thing to have, but if I had to do it again, I think I would have built up about eight inches worth with firebrick splits, and called it a day.

That said, my chimney, as built, draws like a champ. There is seldom even a whiff of smoke coming out of it on start up. That may have something to do with the fact that it is two stories tall.

Your arch will support any reasonable number of flue tiles. I think I have eight or nine stacked up on mine. Since my chimney was so big, I built a third reinforced slab over the oven, supported by the slab below, to bear the weight of the external masonry structure of the chimney, independent of the dome and the flue stack.

[egalecki]

Hey, now that you've torn it down, you can take into account something I've been irritated with on my own oven over the past few days- I left a reveal for the stop, but my sidewalls on the landing are at 90 degrees to the opening after that. It's wider than the inner opening, but trying to fit the door into the opening and make it tight has been a real pain. If you rebuild it with a little spread angle to the vent sidewalls it will make your life easier! It wouldn't take much, less than 1/2 inch per side.

[staestc]

I am pretty sure Mike's sidewalls do open up by about 2" or so, but I may be confusing threads. I have added that to my list of must include design features!

Travis

[mfiore]

That's right, Travis. I do have a flared entrance into my oven. It's not much, but I hope it helps.

[staestc]

Just seems to me like a flared entrance would be a huge benefit trying to get brushes and stuff to the sides of the oven, though I guess it could be a detrement if you are in a windy area.

Travis

[egalecki]

It should be fine if it's even just a little flared. Mine's straight, and my next one won't be!

Travis, when I fire the oven, I use a piece of durock, angled backward toward the front, raised up about 1 to 1/2 inches from the floor. It keeps the wind from interfering with the fire, and sucking the air in the bottom and venting out the top really gets the fire going well.

[Derocherconstruction]

Never look back Mike, you did the right thing. I had to re-do my floor cause of no insulation underneath. Lost lots of time, and lots of questions from friends. Oh, that will probably be OK, stuff like that. If you aren't happy, you have to do it! When it's rebuilt you will be back on track, never to look back! Just throw away those photos of the old arch, and slip in the new, no one here will ever tell. On the coating over the bricks, I did it as I went on up, and then another skim coat over everything later to smooth everything out nice. One benefit to coating is that at curing time you will be able to see any cracks that may [will] show up. With that perfect looking dome you won't have any cracks to worry about anyway! There was a post somewhere by someone here that said if you don't have any cracks, your not using your oven. We use ours, and there are a few cracks, but after a few pizzas and a wine or two they are hardly visible! I have outdoor work till nearly Christmas this year, so I predict fair weather for another 7 weeks! Happy Halloween, Jim

[mfiore]

OK. It's all good now. As always, Dutch was right. I rebuilt the arch. I think this one is better. At least it looks better to me.

Here was the old one. The blue arrow points to the brick I was trying to fix. I was going to remove and redo the middle 7 bricks. In the process the arch and left support, between the red lines, came down.



I rebuilt it today. Here is the new arch. It's a little less flat, and the bricks are more uniform in size.



The keystone needed to be slightly larger than the brick width of 2.25 inches. Rather than cut two small keystones, I bonded together two bricks on their face side, and cut them to size. It was rather simple, I hope it is structurally sound.



It's dropping into the low 30's at night with heavy frost on the ground every morning. I've put a halogen bulb in the oven at night. Seems to keep the brick fairly warm.

[egalecki]

Very nice. You'll be a lot happier with this one. I don't see a problem with the laminated keystone.

[staestc]

It looks good Mike, and the two part keystone is no issue at all given the directions of the forces at play. Nice solution and Nice job!

Travis