Memorial Weekend...

So, this weekend, was very productive. Got the top structure done pretty much... and... I must say, I was very proud of myself. I've never done a structure like this and it turned out very nice and straight. Now comes the difficult part... the roof... and also... we need to figure out what we're going to do on the 'shelf' infront of the oven itself.

So, the top structure was built with 4x8x16 cinderblocks and type S mortar. Before building it too high, I put 3 bags of concrete mix between the first row of blocks and the fire bricks. This is to make the fire brick floor stay 'put'.

After building 4 rows high, we first put the insulation blanket around the entire oven. Not sure how much we should use, so we put a little extra around the top. Then, we dumped in the rest of the vermiculite. It covered the entire dome, but not to the top of the chimney.



As you can see, I tried to fire the thing up a little, with some small pieces of wood and some paper... but it didn't burn very well. Not enough heat to get the thing going. Some smoke came out the front, which was a big dissapointment. But, talked to Enzo, and he told me that it will burn better when we use better wood etc... He told me not to worry... but I still did.



Ended up building all 5 rows of cinderblocks this weekend and now it looks 'real'. Need to start thinking about how it should look when it comes to the roof. Think we will create a slping roof instead of a flat roof we were thinking of. This will make the 'illusion' that the chimney isn't 'that' tall...




Ordered all the tools we needed from Forno Bravo + Ace (something)... so... now we should be ready for the next weekend when we're going to have the big opening. Also need to buy some wood I guess...