Ready for fire

Well, I am ready to start a small fire but it is going to rain. So we will cover it up for now. It is suppose to clear up later this afternoon.

All cleaned out

Here it is pretty well cleaned out. I used a hoe to get most of the sand off the fire bricks then swept it with a small wisk broom. You can see a bit of the newspaper, in the back, left from the first layer of bricks. The seam between this layer and the rest of the dome turned out better that I thought it would.

Dig deeper.

Here I've switched to the flat bottom shovel. The angle of the handle on the spade prevented me from reaching the back of the oven with it (the handle kept hitting the brick arch.) I used a three claw cultivator to scrape the sand off the sides and top of the oven. I could feel and hear when I reached the clay; at which time I turned the claw on its side to gently rake the sand away from the clay. I only found one soft spot that I must not of packed well enough. I used my dead blow hammer with light blows to compress it.

Digging Out

Here I am using a round spade to dig out the sand. Later I will switch to a flat bottomed shovel.

Few!

It worked!

Judgement Day

Well the oven has been drying for several days now. We have been taking the tarp off during the day and putting it back on at night in case it rains. Here I am pulling the pencils out, that I used as shims. This should allow the door frame to drop down clear of the brick arch. Keeping my fingers crossed that the whole thing does not fall apart.

Done

Well here it is, the first layer of the oven done. Ran out of clay (again), energy and daylight (took the picture the next morning). Notice the buttresses are not quite even but I think they will do the job.

Ran out of clay too!

Yesterday was not my day for estimates. We ended up being about one wheelbarrow load short of clay. Grumpy, tired and running out of daylight, we went and dug some more. We probably would of had enough if I hadn't made the lower walls to thick.

Looking good!

Hear I am useing a piece of plywood and a deadblow hammer to tamp the sides of the dome. Not to long after this John noticed the walls were thicker than we had planned (5" instead of 4").

Newspaper

Here John is putting wet newspaper on the sand mold. We later took it off because it kept getting in between the layers of clay and I was afraid it would make a weak spot in the oven walls.