40" WFO in the New Orleans

[PizzaIdiot]

For your arch, do you just 'squirt' the mortar in with a mortar bag or use a small tool and work it in? How wet is your mortar?
Thanks,
Jeff

[Amac]

Hi banhxeo76
Some beautiful brick cuts. I'm very impressed with your progress. In contrast I seem to take forever - but I'm enjoying the process. Is that really a double floor of firebrick? Do you think it will be harder to heat with so much brick? I have 3" brick but most here seem to have 2.5".
Well done so far - looking forward to seeing it all come together. I agree with you btw - it is the bread I am looking forward to more than the pizza.
Amac

[banhxeo76]

Originally Posted by PizzaIdiot

For your arch, do you just 'squirt' the mortar in with a mortar bag or use a small tool and work it in? How wet is your mortar?
Thanks,
Jeff

My mortar is between a consistency of peanut butter and wet toothpaste. I just apply the mortar on the lower side of the brick. Then I laid down the buttered up brick and lightly push the brick to make sure you get a good contact of mortar on the other brick. You just work your way up until you get to where the keystone would be without mortaring in the keystone in yet. Then, you start working from the opposite end and work your way up. On the last brick which is the keystone brick, you should place it in position without mortar just to see how much mortar you need on each side. You may need to cut the keystone if necessary if it is too tight. Then you would buttered up both side of the keystone with mortar and push it into position. You should lightly tap on the brick with rubber or wooden mallet if necessary. Some mortar should ooze out a little bit. Ooze out is a good thing to ensure that mortar joint has contact on both brick. I only use the putty knife to apply more mortar into the joint if necessary.

Make sure that you soak your brick in water for 15 minutes before you mortared up them because the dry brick may suck the moisture of the mortar before you can do anything. However, let the wet soak brick air dry for about 5 minutes before you buttered them up with mortar because super wet brick may not absorb the mortar as well. Also you may have to adapt the procedures base on the climate of your area. Just play mortar and brick a little bit and you will eventually figure out what work best. I am still learning about mortar.

[banhxeo76]

Originally Posted by Amac

Hi banhxeo76
Some beautiful brick cuts. I'm very impressed with your progress. In contrast I seem to take forever - but I'm enjoying the process. Is that really a double floor of firebrick? Do you think it will be harder to heat with so much brick? I have 3" brick but most here seem to have 2.5".
Well done so far - looking forward to seeing it all come together. I agree with you btw - it is the bread I am looking forward to more than the pizza.
Amac

Amac,

Thanks for the compliments. It is indeed double bricks. I will have 5" of hearth floor for BREAD and pizza! It will certainly take more wood to heat up my WFO but this is what I want and intend to do. It is very important to have thick mass on the hearth floor for hearth bread. Once you drop the thick dough on the hearth floor for baking, the surface will cool down quickly (unlike a thin dough for pizza). However, thicker hearth floor will recover and recharge the cooking surface quicker because of thicker mass on the bottom. Hearth floor is supposed to be thicker than the wall and the dome for bread purpose. Keep in mind that the hearth floor is the only place in the WFO that is having any contact with food source. It just makes sense to add more mass to the hearth floor. Alan Scott’s design which is a barrel vault, has at least 8” of hearth floor thickness (4.5” brick & 3.5” Concrete”) which is designed more multi cooking. At the end of the day, I will use more wood but it is hard to say if my bread will taste any better unless I build an exact WFO with a standard 2.5” hearth floor but my wife will KILL me.

[Neil2]

Is the "center void" drained ?

You may want to look at doing this even if it means drilling some holes through your suspended slab.

No oven is truly waterproof and if you do get water in this void you will have a very frustrating effort getting it out.

[banhxeo76]

Originally Posted by Neil2

Is the "center void" drained ?

You may want to look at doing this even if it means drilling some holes through your suspended slab.

No oven is truly waterproof and if you do get water in this void you will have a very frustrating effort getting it out.

I do have holes on all four sides of the void. I am planning to build an enclosure over my WFO. Other than the moisture from the humidity, I don’t think much water will be sitting in the void for long because the concrete slab itself will absorb the water if any gets to the void. But like I mention early, I did have some holes for drainage for just in case. Thanks for noticing the potential problem.

[Neil2]

A lot of the initial and seasonal curing problems discussed on this site are related to poorly drained and ventilated insulation layers. "just in case" extra drainage holes are a good idea.

[banhxeo76]

Gasoline cost roundtrip to Box Store $2.50
4 sets of nuts and bolts $1.96
Door Stop $4.21
Red Oak 2x2x36" $9.42
A peace mind for an idiot like myself on how to build prefect round WFO...Priceless!

Indispensible Tool, don't ever build WFO without it.

Thanks to jcg31 & kibwi for the ideas!

[banhxeo76]

I just finished course number 5. I wish I had taken more pictures to document my WFO project. However, it is hard to stop working just to take picture once you got going. Mortaring is an learning process. Wasted a lot of mortar in the first 4 courses but course 5 was a breeze. I am aiming to get course 6 and 7 done this weekend.

The most nervous part so far was the inner arch. But it was not that bad at all because the form was a great guide. I will work on the outter arch/vent when I am done with the dome.

This project is so much fun!!

[banhxeo76]

5th Course