Michigan WFO Brick Oven Photos Discuss Michigan WFO in the Good Background Information forums; Looking good Mike - fire that puppy up! Les......

[Les]

Looking good Mike - fire that puppy up!

Les...

[Frances]

Its a little known fact of oven building, that the first three bricks are actually the hardest to get right... it looks good though, the rest aught to be smooth sailing.

[egalecki]

Looking good. That's exactly how I'm going to do my next oven's connection to the landing- in this one I have them as separate items, not tied in, and I think yours is better, structurally.

[mfiore]

Originally Posted by egalecki

Looking good. That's exactly how I'm going to do my next oven's connection to the landing- in this one I have them as separate items, not tied in, and I think yours is better, structurally.

What about this long, 10 inch vertical mortar line that seems to be in many ovens. Does this pose a structural problem?

[egalecki]

Well, I don't know, really, from an engineering point of view. It isn't the same problem in mine as the long joint at the landing- I actually hung my dome on the arch some instead of using a mortar only joint inside it. I think that makes the forces even out somehow. But I'm not an engineering/physics kinda person, all I know is one doesn't seem to be a problem and the other one definitely was. I had to run another course of bricks up from the base on each side, with rebar in them, to keep it from falling over when I put on the vent stuff.

[mfiore]

I played hooky today and finished the soldier course. It took much longer than I thought it would (all day!). I think it's because I don't really know what I'm doing.

I didn't taper any of these bricks. I hope it works out OK. Some of the mortar joints were a little larger than I had hoped.

[Les]

Mike - it looks like you are already cutting bricks at this course, what size are you aiming for? I believe I didn't start the taper until the third. Anyways, brick on my friend...

Les...

[Frances]

Originally Posted by mfiore

I think it's because I don't really know what I'm doing.

Nobody ever does on their first oven... it'll work out fine, and looks great so far!

[egalecki]

All my joints weren't perfectly even either on the soldier course- but all my bricks weren't perfect. Some of them were sort of warped- if you put them side by side they curved away from each other. I figured that as long as I was as consistent as I could be without making myself a complete nut (not easy, since I'm already halfway there! ) it would be fine. So far, so good.

And like Frances said, we all went into it blind on the first go. Yours looks fine to me!

[mfiore]

Originally Posted by Les

Mike - it looks like you are already cutting bricks at this course, what size are you aiming for? Les...

I just took a standard brick cut straight across. 4.5 inches, no bevel. I want the inside profile of the courses to all have uniform thickness, 2.25 inches. Therefore, I won't be cutting the inside face of the bricks if I can avoid it.

My soldier course has some outer mortar joints that are a little larger than others (hard to tell from my photo). Some are nearly 1 inch. No gap on the inside, though. I'm sure it should be OK, it's just larger than recommended on the Heat Stop 50 bag.