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http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
Step 1: Base
First the base..... I poured a concrete slab and set to building the walls, both of which were a first for me. I was going poor a slab of concrete but saw these small lintels at the builders merchant and laid 4 square flag stones on top that had been left in the garden when we bought the house. I wanted to store wood under the oven as we dont have a lot of space for a separate wood pile. Thinking about it later I wish I had left the back open so there would have been better air flow around the wood keeping it dryer. Instead in the finished oven you can see I have chopped down a wooden pallet to fit in the bottom, so the air can circulate.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
Step 5: Clay
Now to get a lot more clay. I found this a bit of a problem as we only have a small garden and live up in the hills on gritstone. So not a lot of clay beneath our feet, or not very pure stuff at least. After scratching of my head the only place I could think of was my mum and dads house down in the Cheshire planes. Not very local but I knew it would be good as there house is made out of Cheshire brick. Which was probably made with clay dug out of the back field which is very common round there. Surprisingly they agreed to me digging a massive whole in there garden. Mum is a keen gardener and says she suffers from clay bound soil. So digging a massive hole would loosen up the soil and be really good for her plants. Result... I think we measured took about 13 3 gallon buckets of clay when we finally hit pure stuff. which turned out just enough. Makeing test bricks is a really good idea. All clay is different (unless you buy it pure I imagine). If you mix up enough clay and sand to make a 1" thick brick shaped lump of clay out of pure clay, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 using more clay. The clay is made up of very fine particals and fills in the gaps between the sand. It stops it shrinking and cracking. Use a ruler and score two lines on the bricks 10" ish apart. When they have dried out naturally (dont rush it) You can see how much the bricks have shrunk and cracked. The mix you choose should be hard and not crumble but not have not shrunk by more than 2% in length. After making some test bricks I came up with a ratio of about 1-1 sand and clay. I think there was a lot of sand in the clay when it came out of the ground. p.s. I just went down to the builders yard again for the sand. you need a lot. enough to mix with the clay to make a building mix and make the sand form for the dome. Because clay is made of very fine particales that when mixed with sand, fill in the gaps between the grains of sand. So 1 bucket of clay + 1 bucket of sand does not equal 2 buckets of building mix. Again you will have to trail and error the amounts.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
Step 7: Dome
It looked a bit of a mess at first and I was a bit worried. Until when we had finished I got my plastering trowel out and with some elbow grease and it came up lovely. it looked like a massive one of those marshmallow chocolate teacake things.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
Step 8: Drying
It was a really wet summer, I dont know if you noticed. When I was trying to dry it out was one of the wettest parts. So it took forever to get to a point where I was confident it wouldn't collapse. It was about 3 weeks in the end because it was under a tarpaulin most of the time. When I did open it up and pull all the sand out I also cut back the wall a bit and put in a brick arch (only house bricks though forgot to buy fire bricks for this bit). Also I had a good look at the inner surface of the oven and smoothed out and deformities or cracks with a bit of water and the back of a spoon. The smoother and uniform the inner surface of the oven the better. Then more drying and waiting... It is SO tempting to light a fire in there and just heat it up and be done with it. Slowly slowly catchy monkey. Just air drying then a few days later couple of tea lights. Then some of those big chunky candles going for hours on end. Then a small fire with kindling. Then next night I tried to do another small fire but it got a bit large and dried it out but some hairline cracks appeared. Next time small fire and decided it looked pretty dry, so cranked it up. I got some cracks about 5 MM on the outside appear but nothing on the inside. Pizzas were good but I dont think I got it hot enough. and maybe some moister was still in the walls. It took about 5-6 mins to cook a pizza. I am sure I can get that down with more drying and with the insulation layers added. The final two layers were one of clay slip with sawdust (Nice and loosely packed with loads of air pockets for insulation about 4" thick). When that layer had dried I applied a thin layer of clay, sand and straw mix for plaster (About 1" thick with a very thin coat without the straw to give it a smooth finish).
Step 9: Roof
Finally I built a little roof for it with a removable front so it wont go up in flames. I was really fed up of having a tarp in the garden right outside of my kitchen window. You really need to keep it covered or it will turn back into a pile of clay and sand in the rain. The dome is a lot dryer now with the ventilated roof, I think the tarp was keeping in the moister, much like cling film would. My wife is now calling it the pizza hut, not sure if I like being linked to that establishment but it is better than my mates at work who call it a dog kennel. I really enjoyed making the roof. It was the first time since A-Level Design Tech that I had done any project like this. The amount of cuts on my hands are testament to that. So I finished this afternoon just in time for winter to hit... oh well couple of weeks the wife and I are hosting a pizza party. So I have got to get the hang of using it before then. I am no in no way calling myself an expert. I just read a lot about it for a long time before I had a go at it. I hope this helps any of you if you are thinking of doing your own. If you need any help get yourself over to http://ukwoodfiredovenforum.proboards.com/index.cgi There really is a forum for everything on the internet. There is a wealth of information out there. p.s. I have full CAD designs for the base and roof if anyone wants them. (I did say I had a lot of time to plan this)
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/
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http://www.instructables.com/id/Wood-Fired-Clay-Pizza-Oven/