Is this a senisble way to 'flatten' and arch?

[Puy de Dome]

Well, for better or worse, I went ahead and made a former for the arch.

Wish I hadn't...

Here's the first arch:



As you can see, it's a bit wonky - not helped by my cack-handed jigsaw abilities - the form wasn't so great.

Since that photo I have laid the firt five chains or so by hand with no former, and have decided to pay each chain from here on up y supporting each chain with sticks at the appropriate place. With the grey fire cement, it all feels very secure.

I'll follow this with 1" ceramic blanket, and then two or three inches of vermiculite (do you guys call it 'vermicrete'?). After that will be some more padding until I get to the outer shell which will be brickwork of some kind.

Here's a photo of the oven and stand as of half an hour ago:

[dmun]

It appears that using three, say, standard bricks in the centre of the arch is asking for trouble, because they appear t be able to drop down.

Remember that when you get to the top of your dome, it's a group of odd wedges, or whole brick segments in a bunch of mortar. This is particularly true with three inch bricks instead of 2 1/4 inchers as it exaggerates the spreading of the bricks as the circles get smaller.

[Puy de Dome]

Well, here it is a couple of days later.

First of all, here's a pic of the sky when I just went outside to take some photos for you:



Nice, eh?

Anyway, here's the business:



Shows a frontal view of things.



More of a close-up of my cack-handed brick laying.



So it comes together pretty much. I'm now expecting to have a squarish-front/chimney piece, with the main oven being covered by insulation and then a covering of some sort - hopefully bricks, but might be some other materials that I find.

[Wlodek]

Not sure what's wrong with your brick-laying. This whole layout looks really good!
What is the plan for the roof? Not sure it can be bricks in our climate ...
W.

[Puy de Dome]

w-

Roof-wise - I decided on putting on the insulation layers and then getting a plasterer to apply a layer of render/stucco, then paint it.

I did at one point think bricks could look nice, but I have bought two lots of second-hand/unwanted bricks of fleabay, so to apply a third non-matching set on the roof could have looked too patchworky.

Brickwork ain't too bad - a few errors here and there.

PdD

[Puy de Dome]

Here's the current state of play:

[Wlodek]

This looks fantastic (you took those in the rain ... a medal for committed FB Forum member is in order).

I wish I was at this stage - hopefully in a week or two will be, weather permitting.

W.

[Puy de Dome]

The black area to the rear is the balck rubber tarpaulin to keep the rain off the ceramic blanket and the fire cement underneath.

Just needs the chimney sorting and final layers of vermiculite and cement and then render and paint.

[Carl]

Looking good -you'll soon be cooking in that. You might not need to use a plasterer - if you can lay bricks you can do rendering - just make sure you use lime in the mix, use sharp sand and wear protective gloves. I was dreading my first rendering, but after the first 20 minutes actually started to enjoy it! An easier option might be a steel roof - you sometimes find cheap corrugated steel panels on ebay too. Never any near me though...

[Wlodek]

It is looking good indeed, PdD. You can also use concrete additives instead of lime. I get a brand called Sealomix from my local building supplies shop. They either replace lime to make nice smooth creamy rendering mix (or easy to use mortar), or make the mix very waterproof (or you can add both, I understand).

We were away all day today, but tomorrow weather permitting I may be finishing the stone walled base. Then it will be cabling for mains lighting and for the thermocouples. I found a nice little oven door, which will be hiding the hi-tech bits and switches. The front of my oven won't be in a bakehouse, so I need to protect my electrics from the elements.

Carl, I remember about your data, but work was quite mad for the last two weeks and I was fed up with computing. Your bake house looks fantastic.

Best wishes,
W.