[Tom72]

I posted way back about going the Kettle Pizza route or coming up with my own mod for a Weber pizza oven.  I finally gave up and figured if I was going to do that much work, I might as well go all-in.  Just starting out, but what's well begun is half done...or something like that...










If all goes well, there will be wood-fired pizzas by the end of next month!

[Yeller]

Tom are you familiar with Alan Scott?

ovencrafters.net/ or www.woodfiredpizza.org

Good stuff Maynard

[Gizzy's Smokin Crew]

Good Luck...Keep us posted

[Tom72]

For those of you that were following this, I apologize for the lack of updates.  I have been working on it though...here's my progress so far:






























Getting close now...just a few more steps left.  Wish me luck, and thanks for looking!

[SmokeWatcher]

Looking good so far....and that's one way to hide all the empty bottles!

[Gizzy's Smokin Crew]

Looks Good

[Mark]

Is there a purpose for the bottles?

[Tom72]

Aside from hiding my drinking problem? 

Actually, the purpose of the bottles is to create air pockets between the floor and the base.  The mix surrounding the bottles is full of smaller air pockets...a mix of clay slip and perlite.  The air pockets act as insulation and help prevent heat escaping into the base.  After I build my dome, there will be another layer of insulation areound the outside of the dome.  That layer will just be clay slip and perlite.

[Mark]

Interesting! Thanks for the explanation.

[Tom72]

Time for an update.  Made some progress, but still have a little more to do...

Well, I was going to go with a nice round brick arch, but discovered quickly that with my lack of knowledge and any real skill, I was going to have a problem getting it done....and I was worried about it holding up over time.  Instead I went with this...stacked brick on either side, with steel bars running across the top with bricks set on top of those:





Beginning of sand form:


Sand form done....this took a LOT longer than I expected.  Almost everything so far has!






Covering with wet newspaper:




Building the clay dome:




Well, I got the dome built a little over halfway before  I ran out of clay and daylight, so I have picked up more supplies and will hopefully finish building the dome tomorrow.  Then it's a matter of getting it dried out without any major cracks and digging the clay out.  I'm starting to get excited about this now!

[AzScott]

I just saw this and wow, that's going to be awesome!  Thanks for sharing this build with us.

[Tom72]

This is just the completion of the clay dome (finally!)











If nothing else, at least I get to take a break for a while, which my back will greatly appreciate.   Now all there is to do is wait...wait for it to dry, empty the sand, and fire it a little at a time to cure it.  Then insulation and finishing plaster.  Hopefully I'll have good news and more photos in a couple of weeks.  Thanks for looking!

[chefrob]

outstanding job, you will love using this for all sorts of things.

[Mark]

I'm amazed that you can get the clay to a high enough temperature to fire it into a true ceramic rather than just dried "mud." Or will it cure more each time you use it and the insulation and plaster create the more permanent shell?

[Tom72]

Thanks for all the replies and the kind words!  Well....I don't know if it will ever actually be a true ceramic.  It should make the transition at around 1650-1700 degrees F.  I've already had it up over 1200 degrees, so I should be able to hit that temp, but I think that temp would have to be maintained for 6-8 hours for it to truly become a ceramic.  I may see if I can do that after it's insulated so the heat will be kept in.  I have some cracking that I need to fix as a result of shrinkage, but it's hard as a rock.  I don't think it would do well if it took a big impact, but it's not going anywhere.  I'm going to put on 6 inches of insulation, which will help protect it, and the finishing plaster will help protect from moisture....we shall see. 

But....at least I have some updates.  While I was firing it up the other day, I thought to myself....hey....there's no reason I Can't throw a couple of pies in there, so I did!

Burn, baby, burn!




All swept out towards the back and sides, and ready for pizza:



First pie in:



After about 20-30 seconds:



First pie done (sausage...my favorite):



Second pie (white pizza....olive oil, minced garlic cloves, and mozzarella):



Here's the bottom of the white pizza...could use a bit more char, but not bad:






All in all, I'm really happy with it after the test run.  THAT is the type of pizza I want!  I'm going to do some patching this weekend (in the first pic you can see the huge crack in the front of the dome), and maybe the insulation if the patching dries enough.  Thanks for looking!