Mud Oven Diary – And so it begins….finally.

So I finally have the wheels going on this project and I am super excited about it. I mentioned some of what I plan to do in the last post with the arch and base. The design is based in part by the Bories of the Vaucluse  called Village des Bories. Yet more influence and inspiration from the videos posted on the DSWI site and here.  With the stone I have,  I am leaning toward an Irish wall style which sometimes has a herringbone or a vertical set not only the typical right angle bedding…..we will see. It’s all left overs, stone I would normally use as back-fill…I’ll let it tell me what to do.  I have always felt that my personal style aligns with Irish stone walls and the randomness of how the stone is used. Like many of my projects, this one will be a blend of several styles and methods….Stone Soup!! French, Irish and Italian stonework….. these themes will carry through the entire project, right down to the oven finishes. I can’t wait  to get to the detail work…but for now this is what I have done. A rainy start to the week allowed me to do some figuring on my arch layout, foot print and schedule. I think I’ll let some pictures do the rest of the talking…
This is one side of my form, a piece of OSB with my pointed arch traced and ready to be cut.

Cutting out the pointed arch.

Next I attached  2×4’s to both cutouts to create a form.That’s luan plywood I ripped into 12″ strips.

Now to the luan plywood  sheathing. The middle was left open so I could carry the form over to the footprint by myself.

I marked out the base footprint, cut it, then removed grass and topsoil. Mason gave me a hand..that’s my boy!

Cleaned out all the organic matter…the soil is super sandy here and it wasn’t necessary to go really deep. I didn’t want to carry the radius across the front of the oven because it is easier to work up to a flat surface. It seemed more efficient and I think it will look fine. The one downside is the lack of mass on each side of the arch opening. But I dont think it will be an issue with the pointed arch…because the thrust created by the load ( all the weight of the oven and finishes) isn’t as lateral like a Roman arch. I guess we will see!!

Then I used the left over granite dust from the Calade project to make a solid base for the brick and stone. I ended up compacting it three times before I did the screed, then compacted again. After that I laid a track of Travertine pavers to place the form on, then used composite wedges to elevate and level the form. Don’t forget to do this, your form will not drop if you don’t use wedges and will be stuck. The last thing you want to do is be hacking out a form with all that stone and mud above you! Checking the form, I made sure it was level front to back and side to side. The cutout allows access to pull wedges later and doesn’t effect the structural integrity of the form. I cobbled some scrap of luan to close up the center holes.

I should be starting the brick work tomorrow or Sunday. Look for a new post in a few days!