Mud oven construction - foundation and first layer
I finally got up the gumption to move my construction photos over to my flickr account. Here they are in the entirety, I tried to make the titles fairly self-explanatory:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/7541655 [1]@N03/aX31kR
Here's a condensed version with some commentary:
First off is the foundation. Our frost line in in theory 48 inches, so we dug down quite a bit. We hit a VERY large rock, which made us decide the hole was big enough, and which we figured would act as a foundation in itself.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1012/1443314626_31ba338401.jpg?v=0 [2]
Next, we filled the hole with gravel and started building a foundation from rather unattractive landscaping bricks we already had from another project. We added a layer of lava rock for insulation, Kiko’s new edition has a lot of better ideas for this, but this has worked okay for us.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1410/1443314822_1f6502d8de.jpg?v=0 [3]
Next sand is added, packed, and leveled, and we laid the oven floor bricks. A string was used to draw a circle as large as we could fit on the floor, as our guide for the sand mold form.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1367/1442450837_2025385af8.jpg?v=0 [4]
The sand form took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it turned out nice.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1110/1443315018_c94673ba68.jpg?v=0 [5]
Because of this, we didn’t get very far with our first layer before dark, but you can see the width of the walls, and how compact it was. We were probably overly persnickety with this first layer:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1319/1442451223_365f1a3e72.jpg?v=0 [6]
We covered it in plastic, and resumed the next day.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1331/1442450183_71089d3c3f.jpg?v=0 [7]
Final first layer, wacked with a 2 x 4 and scored for the next layer to stick:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1162/1442450281_d233d47f01.jpg?v=0 [8]
more to come....