Stepped dome? Design Styles, Chimneys and Finish Discuss Stepped dome? in the Pizza Oven Design and Installation forums; Hey, I'm a dumb, middle aged lawyer who makes my living on my butt, and mine turned out nice (at ...

[jmhepworth]

Hey, I'm a dumb, middle aged lawyer who makes my living on my butt, and mine turned out nice (at least the neighbors are all impressed). It was fun to build. If I can do it, anyone can.

Joe

[fxpose]

Someone posted a video of a stepped dome with faced interior here:

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f41/...html#post64160 (Interesting way to get a dome shape...)

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

looks like a lotttt of cutting, but it does look good

[fxpose]

Originally Posted by ThisOldGarageNJ

looks like a lotttt of cutting, but it does look good

I agree. Also seems like more work.

[kebwi]

Stepped arches are also called corbel arches. Without dwelling on this too much, the bottom line is, corbel arches are much weaker than keystoned catenary arches (or pseudo catenaries contained within elliptical arches or even of segmental arches consisting of catenary or pseudo-catenary-elliptical design). Corbels are at the bottom of the pile. Heh heh.

A little google searching (and wikipedia reading) should explain why.

Take that as you may.

Cheers!

[Neil2]

What you will get is a corbled arch (dome).

This is not as structurally sound as compression arch (with keystone). Repeated heating and cooling cycles will further weaken it as the bricks creep back and forth. In a normal dome heating and cooling cycles are not a problem since the bricks cannot move "sideways" out of compression.

I would think twice about using this type of construction.

There is a very good reason why history has given us the compression dome.