MORE oven photos!
This is where the cob mixing starts-this year we used a cement mixer. We had so much mixing to do a tarp and bare feet just seemed like too much work! We mixed about 3 parts sand to 1 part clay.
Here is the bottom cob heat mass layer being built up, about 5-6 inches on top of the beer bottle layer.
This is where the ash slot is so that when the fire gets cleaned out of the oven the ashes conveniently fall into a bucket!
The final smooth coat of cob before the firebricks get laid!
Here are the firebricks all laid out for the floor of the oven. It takes patience to lay all the bricks out as flat and level as possible!
Brick arch building for the door way!
The free-standing arch with cob mixture in the foreground!
The arch again 🙂
Building up the sand form before the first layer of cob goes on.
Work party! We had about 10 people helping us for one day to build the 8inch thick layer of cob.
More cob building!
The sides are getting higher…
and higher!
And there it is about a week later. I didn’t take photos of digging the sand out, but I did that about a week after building the cob layer. I had to use a shop vac to get the last of the sand out and I had to stick myself halfway into the oven with a head lamp to see what I was doing!
The insulation layer went on in three days two weeks after the cob layer was built. This is the same mix that went in with the beer bottles under the floor.
The last bits of clay and sawdust on the top! Now we just wait for it to dry.