No Form Brick Oven

[Xabia Jim]

Catenary....caught a memory bank somewhere..... Gaudi, the Spanish Architect used the Catenary arches in a lot of his work in Spain. I remember seeing models of his strings hanging upside down in the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

This link might be of interest:

Catenary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[redbricknick]

Jengineer posted a great link about the catenary arch a while back.. Hey mate, any chance you would post some of your photos here on the fornobravo site? The yahoo site took a while to load for me.. My Mac is very fast and I have broadband..

[camarina73]

just my hands, bricks and mortar

[camarina73]

i don't know how to reduce size or quality of pics to post them that is why i put them on Yahoo.

[CanuckJim]

Carmarina,

I'm a professional mason, and I have to say you've done a job any pro would be proud to call his own.

Well done.

Jim

[camarina73]

Thank you. I am a General Contractor. But my specialty is wood or so I thought.

[Xabia Jim]

Camarina,

What consistency was the mixture and what prevented the bricks from slipping.

I'm even more impressed!

Amature mason here.....

[camarina73]

wet enough not to push the other brick next to it out of alignment, but the other thing is if the other one next to it is out of alignment a bit just nudge it back. The key is to hold it just for a while. by a while a mean it could be 5 seconds or even 20 seconds depending on what ring your on and how many on a given ring you've installed. After the third or fourth on a ring is installed they set fairly well and the next one you put on will not push the other out of place. Also I found it easier to put the mortar on the bottom and the side attaching to the other brick so the start setting together forming a stronger structure. and more surface area of that brick is sticking to something. At the ninth ring I also cut the bricks smaller so less weight to hold up.

[carioca]

Inspiring job, mate! I particularly liked the arch portion. Two questions if I may: what size are your firebricks? And I notice you changed tack a bit after the first few courses to ensure the perpends don't line up - I've been thinking about this and believe I'll cut my bricks at the arch junction so as to have (half) bricks and avoid joints that line up from course to course... but I believe this shouldn't really matter in a domed oven!

Cheers,

Carioca

[carioca]

Originally Posted by Xabia Jim

Catenary....caught a memory bank somewhere..... Gaudi, the Spanish Architect used the Catenary arches in a lot of his work in Spain. I remember seeing models of his strings hanging upside down in the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

This link might be of interest:

Catenary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I found a link somewhere to an India site that explains the catenary principle and its application to dome design very well - can't put my hands on it just now but Google should suffice :-)

I was sufficiently impressed to take an old chain (catena), pin it to a piece of hardboard and let it hang between the mid-wall points of my planned 1 m internal diameter oven: it yielded a curve that is somewhat steeper than I'd have 'intuitet'... But the Indian site explains very well the force lines through such a dome, and why your construction should be midway along the catenary lines...

Ciao,

Carioca