Man of Honour
My dad seen a guy on TV who had a big clay oven in his back yard for baking bread and whatnot, and my dad being the impulsive sort that he is, just had to build one. On Friday I did a 120 mile round trip to a wee place called Swatragh to pick up 150Kg of 'Classic Red Clay'. It's a good job I wasn't stopped by the police, my boot looked like it had a large consignment of heroin stashed in it.
Anyhow, we got around to building it yesterday. It started off with the platform which consisted of 2 flagstones held up by breeze blocks. On the platform was laid a layer of fire bricks which would form the base of the oven and would hold in the heat. To get the dome shape of the oven, we had to make a frame out of willow branches as you can see in the following picture. I didn't start taking pics until half way through so by the time I took this first pic we had begun to apply the clay.
More clay is applied, leaving space for the doorway:
The chimney is attached. We built the support for this out of standard breezeblocks, upon which the chimney (an old bit of clay/terracotta sewer pipe) rested. It was fixed in with cement and clay.
The doorway begins to take shape:
Cutting off more clay with the saw. The clay came in big 12.5Kg blocks:
Anyhow, we got around to building it yesterday. It started off with the platform which consisted of 2 flagstones held up by breeze blocks. On the platform was laid a layer of fire bricks which would form the base of the oven and would hold in the heat. To get the dome shape of the oven, we had to make a frame out of willow branches as you can see in the following picture. I didn't start taking pics until half way through so by the time I took this first pic we had begun to apply the clay.
More clay is applied, leaving space for the doorway:
The chimney is attached. We built the support for this out of standard breezeblocks, upon which the chimney (an old bit of clay/terracotta sewer pipe) rested. It was fixed in with cement and clay.
The doorway begins to take shape:
Cutting off more clay with the saw. The clay came in big 12.5Kg blocks: