I started building the frame for the hearth stone a few weeks ago. So like most of my oven-building endeavors, it started off with a trip to Home Depot. Check out the new armrest I installed in my car!
Unfortunately, as soon as I got home I had to disassemble the armrest so I could build these supports for the hearth stone. Apparently it's good to have additional support when you're setting 840 pounds of concrete on top of something:
Now that these supports are in, I stick a massive piece of plywood on top of it, build the frame around the edge, and now VOILA!
At this point I thought "ok I just need to buy some rebar and concrete and I'll be ready for the next step! However, my "VOILA" was spoiled yet again when I realized my frame needed to be 3 inches higher. So I dilly-dallied for a few weeks then finally got back on it this weekend and ACTUALLY finished the frame:
Much better...now that that's finally done, I just need to buy 10 more bags of concrete mix (I only had 4 bags leftover from my original purchase of 80 60lb bags) and 2 cubic feet of something called "Vermiculite". Apparently this is supposed to add a layer of insulation so the heat from the oven doesn't make the area below the oven too hot (down there where the supports are. Eventually the wood for the oven is gonna get stored there). No one at Home Depot had ever heard of vermiculite, and the first employee at Lowes hadn't heard of it either, so for a minute I thought I was going to have to delay this next step until I could find some vermiculite somewhere. The real fun part was trying to explain what I thought it was to the Home Depot and Lowes employees. Fortunately, I ended up finding someone at Lowes who could help me out, so I lost my excuse to procrastinate!
Now that I had my vermiculite set and had my concrete ready, all I needed to do was start mixing and pouring then VOILA!
...Ok ok so I'm a bag or two short, BUT I'm not taking away the "VOILA!" this time. Once this frame is done setting, the next step is to level out the surface with sand then start covering the surface with refractory bricks. So it's okay that I'm a wee-bit short (and unable to completely level the concrete) because i'm going to level it with sand anyways! Uh oh, I'm starting to sound confident in calling audibles to the instructions...this could be dangerous! There was one step that I wasn't quite able to figure out but didn't audible:
The pictures said to add a gap in the frame for this little area, except no where did it explain the purpose this thing will serve. Hopefully I find out by the end of my construction. For all I know, this could be the single most important step in the construction that's holding everything together.
I'm sure a lot of you are wondering when the "brick" aspect of the "wood-burning brick oven" is going to make an appearance. Soon. Very soon. First I need to let the slab finish setting for the rest of the week, then I can take the frame off and remove the supports from down below. After that, I am forced to buy some bricks! I guess I should start Googling "how to lay bricks"
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