Pizza Bob's 42" Build Pompeii Oven Construction Discuss Pizza Bob's 42" Build in the Pizza Oven Design and Installation forums; Bob, nice progress and your oven floor and soldier course look great. I had a few wobbly spots on my ...

[Dino_Pizza]

Bob, nice progress and your oven floor and soldier course look great. I had a few wobbly spots on my floor that I thought I would have to sand down but it's true that the harringbone pattern doesn't catch the peel. I only sanded the noticable edges in my landing.
Also, I understand how you feel about tieing in as much as you can. Since you are putting this mutch detail cutting into your project, it really is not any harder to tie in your inner arch to the arch walls. I know it does not directly tie in to the rings but if you tie in to the arch walls that make up the arch, then at the 5th row or so, your ring go over the arch and it all is quite solid.
Attached are pics of my arch and how 2 of the 4 arch side wall bricks (on each side) are actually part of the arch. You'll be fine whichever way you go but I know you (us) engineer types like to review all the options before settling on a solution. Hope this helps and keep up the good work, Dino

[mrgweeto]

Nice framing job!! We have decided to go the wood root. We are going to have
6" + of vermiculite all around so we aren't concerned about the heat. We are going to use cement board and stucko on top and stone on the bottom. Probably 3 courses of brick between the two and a friend has donated white carrera marble that was left at his house when he bought it. It was left outside and is about 2" thick. It is weathered and looks really nice and the price is right. We are actually going to put a gable vent or ridge vent in because in CT it gets pretty humid and when not in use we want to be able to vent out the moisture. Pizza Bob is a couple of towns over and I have been keeping up with his progress. Everything looks great. Yours especially because you are cooking pizza and drinking wine. Nothing better!!
G

[pizza_bob]

Dino,
That sounds like a good way to tie the bricks in. Thank you for the detailed pictures!

I picked-up the rest of my firebricks yesterday and was a little disappointed with the quality of the bricks. I can't believe how chipped the edges/corners are! Are there different grades of firebrick? It seems as if these bricks chip so easily. Perhaps the buff bricks chip easier than red??? Who knows...

This weekend I'll build the form for the inner arch and set-up my "indispensible tool". I ordered parts from McMaster Carr and built an adjustable "indispensible tool". I was planning on a 19" dome height and this should help.

Rain, rain go away!

~Bob

[pizza_bob]

Originally Posted by guerriero75

Hi all,
I'm trying to build a pompey oven here in England Uk, material its no problem, the problem that I have its that the floor base will be 1.3 metres by 1.4 metres, could you please help me to calculate what its the best size oven that will fit on top and the angle of the wedges.

Genovese building pompei oven in UK
Mark

Hello Mark,
I'm probably the last person in this forum that you should be asking for advice but...With a 51" (1.3 meter) base I think the largest dome you should go with is a 32" inside diameter. That would leave you 4.5" for dome thickness (times 2 = 9") and then 1" of insulative blanket (times 2 = 2") and then 4" of vermiculite or perlite (times 2 = 8"). So add these up 32"+9"+2"+8" = 51" (1.3 meters). In the front-back direction this will not give you much of a landing...55" - 38" - 4.5" - 1" - 4" = 7.5". I belive a landing this small will be a problem. You might want to start your own thread and ask for more detailed information.
Good luck.

~Bob

[Lars]

Mark,

I think you should start your own thread. You will get lots of responses, but when it comes right down to it, you will still have to decide. My oven hung a bit over the edges of a small base. And, I sacrificed a bit on the insulation around the base of the dome. I insulated more at the top, though. I have only made pizza once, and still don't have an insulated door.

It really depends on what style of oven you want on the outside enclosure. I used a stucco on top of vermiculite, and, honestly, I only ended up with about 3.5" of insulation in some areas. After full firing, I have felt the sides where the least insulation is, and I don't perceive any extra warm areas ( which tells me that it is adequately insulated, perhaps)

My oven is 39" inside, and I show how I cut all my bricks with a chisel in the tips, techniques section... I also cut them all at a taper. Using a 1/2" block of wood to lift the outside edge of each 4.5" firebrick, the dome kind of makes itself.

I would go for as big an oven as you can, then figure out some way to incorporate insulation out over the edge if necessary. ( just my opinion)

Lars.

Start a thread... good luck...

my pics at 'oven cra|ck...AGHH'

[guerriero75]

Hi all,
Thanks for the help, I will start a new thread

Cheers

[mrgweeto]

Bob,
All those firebrick have blems on them. It would take you longer to hand pick good ones than it would to build the oven. We hop to get another course finished tomorrow which will leave us with 3 left. It is looking good. We don't really have that much waste because we use everything that is over 2+ inches when we want to make sure to try and overlap a joint. It looks very old world when you look inside. Can't wait to see the brick get dark from use MAKING PIZZAS. Does anyone out there know a good source for cookware to be used in the oven ie. gratin/small casserole dish. I know cast iron is good but I also know people cook with terricota but that will break easier.
G

[pizza_bob]

Made some progress yesterday. I cut and dry stacked the landing arch walls and reveal. The first and third courses of the vertical landing walls are mitered and tie in to the dome and reveal blocks. This should make it more sturdy and it eliminates a continuous mortar joint. I also decided to take some time (waste some time?) tapering the oven opening arch bricks. Really simple to cut on the HF tile saw and they came out really clean. I still have a couple more to cut and then I'll start mortaring them in place. I'm not sure if I'll do this for the other arch bricks but we'll see...

~Bob

[mrgweeto]

Looking Good. We have 2 more courses left on the dome. We get 6-8 bricks set with supports. We can't see wasting time watching the heatstop set so we layed out the front arch and the brick walls in front. We picked up 150 Heritage S brick at O & G and have the front arch and walls partially done. The brick were approx $.46 each and have a very old world look. Will try and send some updated pix tomorrow. We are still using our $19.95 angle grinder and $86.00 wet saw along with masons hammers and chisels. That Heatstop covers up all the blems on the outside and is great to work with. When we switched over to the masons mortar for the regular brick it felt archaic in comparison. The Heatstop reacts like a thinset.
G

[Dino_Pizza]

Nice work Bob!
You've built yourself a great "indispensable tool". And a really like your arch tapers. You'll be able to have really thin mortar joints and it will be really strong arch.
I don't recall reading if anyone answered your 1/2" mortar joint question on the outside of the soldiers but remember, the joint closes quickly over the 4.5" width face of the brick. In all my hairline cracks I got (and you'll get 'em too) none appeared on the soldier joints. I used Refmix down there which is quite strong. So I wouldn't worry about it but if you want to taper the long side of soldiers, it would look great but you'll never see it from the inside, looks the same as without tapering.
Love those Solid Works Drawings too, Take care, Dino