A closeup of the oven door: open for business.

Well technically, construction on the oven was finished on November 22, 2011, but it needed four to six weeks to cure properly before it could be used. The next step is to “pre-fire” the oven to drive out any residual moisture and burn out any possible impurities or organics that were in the clay.

Since the last posting about the oven it has been a busy couple months, so here is a quick pictorial essay covering the remainder of the build. And of course, the long awaited stop motion video of this build will be up soon! Look for that in the next post.

The crew posts up for a well earned pizza part following completion of the oven.

The interior dome form and floor brick layer ready for dome construction.

An igloo, or an oven?

The first layer of the dome is done. The board and wire show where the chimney will be.

All hands getting dirty for the final layers of the dome.

Final layer of the dome form is finished.

Voltaire and Ryan finish up the diamond lathe to get ready for tiling.

A man possessed: Patrick single handedly removes the interior dome form.

Ready for the tiling!

The first round of tiles finds a new home.

Lots of cleaning and scraping to be done.

Grouting the tiles and applying the final adobe to the base.

Basically done! Some cleanup to do still. And remove that tape...

The interior surface of the dome.

So fresh and so clean; the new oven gets ready to hibernate for a month.

A big congratulations to everyone who worked on the oven. The tenth grade students put in some serious work on this thing, with many of them staying after school to help keep the project on schedule. All that’s left to do now is fire it up and make some delicious pizzas!

Prepped for mixing: The calm before the storm

A little prep work before the students showed up included getting some mixing stations set up (plywood and masonite squares) and some plastic laid out to protect the sidewalks (somewhat effective, some scraping to be done…). Two of the student groups were still working on their stage one projects: the brick cutters and the dome builders. That freed up the other two groups to begin mixing and casting the dense base layer of the oven floor.

Ready... Set... MIX!

The clay that we are using for the adobe mix is locally sourced from right next door on Briar Chapel property, and contains a very high percentage of clay. There is of course the regional Carrboro Grit and some miscellaneous debris to content with, but we got a pretty clean vein thanks to some careful scouting and some help from a big ol’ front loader. The mixing procedure consists of carefully chopping the clay soil into the smallest grains possible so that we have a fairly homogenous blend with few chunks. A flat shovel is best for this, but some students had to make do with a pointed one…

I Mix You Like Craaaazy, I Mix You Like Craaaazy....

After 5 or 6 batches and some tired shoulders we had enough mixture to cast a three inch thick dense base slab. This mixture has a high percentage of cement mixed in with the clay to create a solid slab. The next layer will employ perlite to create an insulating slab that will go on top of this one. But our goal for this day was accomplished: Base Slab = Done.

Y'all just couldn't resist carving your initials into it, could you...

Here are a few shots of the students in action!

Kevin cuts some bricks..

The brick crew lays out the floor

Devin and Meg work on the interior dome form

The interior dome form is loosely constructed of particle board and 2x4s, screwed together and finally covered in wire mesh and plastic sheeting. This dome will serve as support for the adobe mix as we build the walls, and will eventually be removed once the walls harden. It needs to be sturdy enough to support the weight of the walls, but built in such a way that it can easily be dismantled inside the oven and removed through the door. I gave some basic guidelines and measurements to the crew working on it, but left the construction decisions up to them to see what they would come up with. I feel pretty good about their design and all attachments are made with only screw, so it should be easy enough to dismantle. I think we may have a struggle getting the first few boards out, but then it should go pretty smoothly. The first few are always tough because the weight of the adobe pushes down on the form, essentially wedging it in place.

Claire and Joseph begin cutting wire fencing for the reinforcing mesh

Mr. Malone assists the crew that is attaching the tile backer board to the sides of the steel base. The floor bracing for the base slab has been cut and placed into the frame.

As the first two crews were working on bricks and the dome form, the other two crews were busy cutting wire fencing and attaching backer board. The wire fencing is sculpted into the form of the oven dome that will serve as reinforcement for the walls. There is also a layer of mesh integrated into the base slab of the oven. The backer board is cut to a height that serves as the retaining wall for the cast base slab. The bricks will be set into this base slab later.

The whole oven is built with wheels integrated into the base so that the oven can be rolled out of the way and secured when not in use. Some of our construction decisions were made to account for the vibrations and jostling that the oven will be subject to when it is being rolled. The gaps in the concrete sidewalks around the school are pretty dramatic and will try to give the oven a good pounding. The wire mesh will help hold everything together.

This thing is the definition of beefy. All size requirements met with the stunning accuracy I would expect, but the craftsmanship and attention to detail is above and beyond what most companies would deliver.

Also, Ricky’s (he welded it up for us) design for mounting the casters is super sweet. Once the sides of this thing are skirted with tiles the casters will essentialy disappear. Perrrrrrfect.

Three inch angle iron makes up the legs and frame with square tube and two inch channel for the top and bottom braces respectively. The casters are mounted on sections of four inch channel, cut to fit flush into the corners. And it’s predrilled for mounting our hardibacker to boot. Bad to the bone.

We begin physical construction next week. But before then, look for the research presentations to be linked here after tomorrow.

ADOBE OVENS- History,origins, which cultures/countries, time periods, development of design changes, different types of ovens- different materials, different designs, other common names, how to cook in an adobe oven

PIZZA OVENS- How to build an adobe or earth pizza oven, how to plan and pour a concrete footing and reinforced concrete span, working with masonry- special consideration, considerations for building- fire codes, building codes, permitting

ARCH AND DOME- History,use, and importance of arch and dome in architecture- types of arches, first uses, buttressing, development of design changes, famous arches and domes

TILE AND MOSAIC- History and contemporary use of clay tile and mosaic- how to lay tile, special considerations for vertical surface and exterior application, famous tile works, other uses, artists that use tile and mosaic

CLAY AND ADOBE- What is clay? What is adobe? source, geologic history, uses, clay in art, clay in industry, tools and equipment used for working with clay, contemporary and historic uses for adobe, ceramic or adobe artists- historic and contemporary

And here is a quick sketch of the proposed design:

Basic design for Woods P.O.P

Ready for business

Skyler came to town today and picked up the oven to take back to Tallahassee. They still need to wait a bit to let it cure before they can fire it up, but the hard part is done. Here are a few pictures from the build process that show you mostly how it’s done.

Wire form reinforcing mesh

Sand form and wire mesh done

First layer a.k.a. "hotface" or dense layer almost done. Minus the bald spot...

Second or insulating layer complete. Door roughed in.

Outer layer done! Door complete! Ready to get fired up and cook some 'zzas!

It really looks great and is going to be a super oven for their needs. It has a 48″ interior diameter which should allow them to cook at least three or four pizzas at a time. The dome and the multi-layered insulated walls should allow them to cook non-stop for several hours at a time with minimal fire maintenance.

Here is the working version of my newest oven build movie. I will likely change the credits and the music around a bit. And I will be adding some still photos of the oven later this evening or tomorrow which will show some of the construction process and some good shots of the door and interior. Enjoy for now!

Grove Street Oven, 2010

About a year ago I built this oven while I was in Tallahassee, FL. The interior space is 28 inches wide by about 40 inches long. It easily accomodates 2 pizzas at a time, or several loaves of bread. Precooking firing time is about 2.5 hours to get the walls saturated enough to hold a steady 500 degrees. Pizza is done in about 15 minutes. The first time I fired it up we made 4 or 5 pizzas and a calzone! Mmmm mmmm good.

I took the pleasure of whipping this little video together so you can see how it was made:

Clearly not a tutorial, but you get the whole oven in less than 4 minutes! What more could you ask for?

I’ll be adding more oven info and a couple more videos as I get them strung together. Thanks for checking it out!

By holding the Lyman Edwards Semi-Quarter Annual Potluck Breakfast and Benefit Critique. All proceeds go to benefit your education.

Please post a comment to this entry with your name and what you will be bringing. There are no requirements except that it be mouth wateringly tasty. I’ll provide plates and utensils, but it seems like you all should provide your own cup. Ceramic cup that is!

The essentials: Tuesday April 20, 9:05 AM, Handbuilding room

There is not much difference between pitchers and teapots except proportion, and teapots generally have a lid. Check out the links that I provided for the first assignment and see if you can find some that you like.

Bring a couple ideas and some sketches tomorrow to class and we will discuss after demo.

And don’t forget about those cylinders that are due soon!