School holidays and rain, typical

Day 1 of the school holidays and, what a surprise, it's raining. Kids are fighting over lego starwars, Josh is attempting to make bread but it's not looking too promising yet. I shall let Kirsty loose in the kitchen once Josh has finished. I managed a small amount of progress on the pizza oven this morning before the fear of electrocution got the better of me. The first arch has been cemented and the second one is ready to go now once there's a short dry spell. It's looking like I'll be using every last peice of brick to finish the beast.

Getting technical now

The cementing begins

With the recent arrival of Steve and Laura, we have commenced work on cementing the refractory bricks in place to create the dome of the oven. Day 1 of cementing has gone well although I am slightly concerned as to whether or not I will have enough fire cement left to screed the dome once it's finished. Oh well.

Angles and bricks and things

A bit more work done, but none today as it's wet and horrible.

Lumping the base into place

Yesterday, during a brief spell of stupidity, I felt that progress had been slacking on the pizza oven. I decided I would have a go at getting the oven base up into place. I estimate that it weighs about 250kg and I have cast it 20m away from it's final destination. First up I flipped it over so I could remove the cast. Then, using various leavers and blocks of wood, I managed to push it onto the sack barrow. Like the truck pull in worlds strongest man, I pushed the beast over next to it's new home. Then I slowly edged it up a cople of planks before jacking up the back end and sliding it across. All in all a job well done. Now I can get on with the technical bit.

Casting the insulated base

With Janes return to France, I have been able to push on and cast the insulated base for the pizza oven. There were 4 key satges to the base, Stage one was a dryinsh mix of sand, cement, lime and gravel packed tightly into the corners. Well I hope it's packed tightly as I delegated this task to Joshua. Stage 2 was the same mix again, this time with the addition of 30% vermiculite, this was placed into the middle and tamped down around the reinforcing bars. Another layer of the first mix was then applied and topped off with chicken wire. Finally a layer of wet concrete finished it all off. I should also point out that I have cast it upside down, just in case any technical people were thinking it was all a bit arse about face. The whole thing has now been topped with plastic to slow the drying process. This will now sit where it is until Steves arrival next week when we shall attempt to move it into place.

More construction complete

Another week on the job and progress is good

Still working here

I decided that, as some of my older relatives could not cope with the technicalities of facebook, I'd better put some more pizza oven progress on here. Although things seem like they're moving forwards at a tortoise pace, the end of the stone walling is in sight, thank god. I rekon if I get another 2 warm days I should be able to knock it on the head, then I can start on the more complex bits. Like the insulated base and the fire brick igloo. Fortunately I have Stevey arriving in a couple of weeks to help with these bits.

Pizza oven progress and party

Our recent spell of cold weather had been hampering any progress on the pizza oven but today, with temperatures of 10 degrees, a few more peices fell into place. I managed to purchase 100 refractory bricks that hed been removed from someones large fireplace. I think they were probably slightly too heavy for the car but it's getting used to the abuse now. I also managed to find a door for the beast which after 4 trips to the local brocante finally resulted in them being open for once and having just what I needed for the bargain price of 45 euros. We've had Grandma Irene with us for the last week. Her visit coincided with Kirstys birthday which meant that for a few days we have had a very happy, not so little, girl. For her actual birthday Jane took her and two of her frinds bowling and then to Mcdonalds whilst grandma and the boys spent the day at home. Grandma is now quite a whizz at guitar hero. It has also been a very sad time for us as my mother in laws partner, Tom, passed away suddenly last week. Our thoughts and prayers are with her at this time.