Taylor the turtle...Cob oven build

[cannyfradock]

Received a phone call last Thursday from a community project in Raglan who invite students on the farm for life building activities. The project at Llananant farm Raglan also hold events for ex soldiers who have been injured in the line of duty.

....Sue said......can you come and build us a clay oven the day after tomorrow?.....always up for a challenge, the invite was accepted. Due to the short notice and not sure of the materials at hand, plan A was worked out in my mind. The farm has a brook, so clay was to be sourced there. I was told there were bricks and blocks I could use for the base. I took a load of storage heater bricks for the hearth and I asked Sue to order some sand, thermolite blocks and lintels.

Arrived at the farm Sat morning and due to not enough bricks and blocks I ended up building Plan F.....A clay oven on a temp base. The oven will be lifted up with a forklift and a sturdy wooden frame (being built at the moment) will replace the temp frame.

Shall post more pics of the build when I get them.

Here are the cob balls (clay,sand, hay and water) ready for the second clay layer..



The student decided that the finished Clay oven should have an individual finish so they decided on making the oven resemble a turtle. with feet...a head...and segmented shell (which they all signed with name and country, as they came from France, Caribbean, Texas, Sri-lanka?....and other countries which I've already forgot)



.....They named the oven.....Taylor!!!

Terry (more pics of the build to follow)

[faz]

Looks good Terry!

[turkey]

the custom finish is one of the best things with these clay ovens and the real communal nature most seem to be built in, really back to the roots of cooking.

love it

[bighairyal]

And this only took one day? Very impressive - makes my five and a half months looks pretty shoddy by comparison

[Fat Bob]

Well done in the time available. Has it cured has the oven been used?

[cannyfradock]

...I did have 6 willing helpers who weren't afraid of hard work...or getting their hands dirty so that helped me a great deal in the short time I had.

It was finished on Sunday.....and the sand form is still inside. At the moment it is covered with a tarp. If I have time tonight I will go there and scoop the sand out. I'd also like to put a couple of hours gentle heat in the oven at the same time......time being the problem.

One of the organisers put too much water on the clay for the first layer so I'm a bit worried about that. I'll post how I get on.

Terry

[rivergirl]

won't that just mean it might take a little longer to dry Terry ?? keeping my fingers crossed for you thats the case .

[cannyfradock]

.....one week later and I'm still waiting for those build photo's....

Went back to the oven today and the tarp covering the oven had an adverse affect and the oven was "soaking wet". I scraped out a third of the sand dome and lit a small curing fire for about 40 minutes. Removed the ashes, then scraped out .....to two thirds of the sand dome and lit a similar fire. Repeated and removed all the rest of the sand dome and lit another fire.

I rigged up part of a "chicken run" over the oven (wooden frame with chicken wire and a roof) to allow the oven to cure more naturally. I didn't do what I preach and forced heat into the oven......we now have a few cracks, but it seems OK.





The next picture shows the newspaper that was laid on top of the sand form. It really helps when scooping out the sand as....if the clay is still soft, you know when you reach the newspaper to stop removing the sand. The newspaper eventually will burn away.



Terry

[turkey]

Or slightly quicker than eventually with drying fires like that

So hard not to crank it up, my small drying fire was 3 hours long in the end and ended up burning my finger, luckily the dome fared better.

Pic do look great, especially with a fire going, somehow without a fire they can look a little sad.