Begining dome construction

[Ken524]

Can't wait to see the vent! Looks great!

[DrakeRemoray]

Great job,

I think you are going to be very happy with a cast vent. The capture area really helps keep smoke from coming out the front of the oven.

Drake

[rlf5]

Thanks guys. Functionally, I think it will do well. The bottom of the opening is about 12 inches deep and 19 inches wide. It compresses to about 12x15 before going to an 8 inch OD circle. Although it won't be much to look at, which is why everything will be covered up with everything else upon completion!

[rlf5]

Well I took the forms off today for the vent! It actually came out a lot better than I expected. Its hard to see the incline in the vent from the inside though.

[Ken524]

Excellent! Nice work on the cast. Looks like you just need to slap a DuraTech anchor on there and you are ready to go.

[rlf5]

You got it! I'll have to grind about a millimeter off the inside of the cast so that the plate will slide right in. My mold was right at 8 inches. If i was smart I would have wrapped tape around the edge until the OD was large enough for the plate.

[Acoma]

Smart enough? Smart enough to come up with a great idea.

[asudavew]

Great work.

I have do to something like this.

I may have to ask you some questions down the road.

......

Let me know how well it draws, my bad WOFO.. not so good yet.
i.e. Black outside vent.

Dave

[rlf5]

Originally Posted by Acoma

Smart enough? Smart enough to come up with a great idea.

Yea, hopefully someone else will learn from my hindsight!

Dave

No problem at all. Ask away!

[rlf5]

Well after a 5 month hiatus I'm back on the oven. I probably added a couple courses over the past two weeks. The bad part is I got a bit off course and now each course doesn't line up when you try to connect them after the vent (vent transition is terrible too). So I'm going to try two methods...1) cast the rest of the dome cap with refractory castable and see if a well regulated curing schedule of oven fires will not cause any problems, and 2) make quite a few specially cut bricks to get back on course, and then finish that way. I opted for choice #1, b/c if it works then thats great, and if not then its really not that much wasted work. I had planned on casting the very top of the dome anyway, but I would have been able to cure it in my kitchen oven. The size of the cap now is just too big to fit, so we'll see how this goes...