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Post by limpopomark on Feb 1, 2013 5:13:57 GMT
Cheers Terry - that's me not explaining myself properly. The internal square into which the hearth fits was an odd size (as were all the bricks...), which left an odd sized gap around the edge of the hearth. It's these gaps I have filled with gravel/mortar. The gaps between hearth bricks I have indeed filled with fine sand, brushed over just as in your picture, although by a short, bald bloke in my case. I hope that makes things clearer!
mark
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Post by umhloti on Feb 1, 2013 10:58:45 GMT
Please send us some nice weather mark .
You flying . Wish I could say the same for My WFO build that has ground to a standstill . But wil finish when I can
Lovely to see your photos and see some nice warm weather . Always looking forward to your posts
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 1, 2013 11:54:25 GMT
Thanks man - appreciate your kind words. It is indeed hot, and humid too. You'll be pleased to hear that we will only be burning mopane. If there is one thing we have a lot of, it is mopane trees!
Really hoping to make some progress over the weekend. Tried some test balls of our clay and the newly released sand from the road (clay: sand 2:1 and 1:1), and though they were maybe a bit squishy, and cracked a little (and looked like clay/sand breast implants), they have baked rock hard in the sun. I'm feeling confidentish.
Goodluck with yours, umhloti, and if there's warm weather in Ireland, you may thank me for sending it your way.
mark
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 7, 2013 5:51:46 GMT
Hi all It's been a busy 48 hours here. At the end of it, I have the swollen battered hands of a novice prize fighter, the spine of a 96yr old miner and a rather cool looking mud dome. First things first. I wanted to see if the sand would actually make a dome easily, which to my enduring surpise it did, so as of Tuesday afternoon we had a sand dome atop the plinth. We also now have a decent crown of 5 volunteers here, so with more hands (and feet) to assist, and a surprising lull in the heat and rain, we scrapped other plans and decided to crack on with the oven while we could. It was so cold I was wearing three layers. 24C in the Limpopo valley. I almost needed a woolly hat. Attachments:
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 7, 2013 6:00:01 GMT
... dome in situ, the weather gamble seemed to pay off with Wednesday morning bringing more cool weather. When we came to cover the dome with newspaper we ran into a bit of bother, as it refused to stick. A bit of Blur Peter thinking resulted in a light batter of flour and water being knocked together which, used as a glue on the sand form side, allowed the dome to be covered. Meanwhile, clay and sand was mixed 1:2 as per our test batch (still not 100% confident but it's a bit late now...) and eventually we reached a consistency that we reckoned would hold. It refused to perform quite like the sausegey mass that I have read about, but held together in a tightly-compacted ball and eventually (10 hours later) allowed us to complete a beehivey-looking structure. I would very much have liked a decent pint at this point but had to take the folks out for a drive, so it didn't happen. There's also nowhere to get a pint here, come to think of it. Attachments:
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 7, 2013 6:04:38 GMT
With the sun back out this morning, I'm trying to let the beast slowly dry in some shade, which is challenging. I've cut a small aperture and marked out the door, and am hoping to knock up the brick arch later today. Somehow. I need some breakfast so will leave it at that for now. Once again, big thanks to anyone that's written about their oven experience of offered advice, suggestions or support on here. More to follow, at some point. cheers mark Attachments:
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 7, 2013 15:16:09 GMT
OK.... One ridiculously sunburnt neck later, here's a hollowed-out oven with a brick arch incompetently but hopefully sufficiently cobbled together. I went with a sand form in the end but for some reason every time i measured anything to do with the door of the oven it said something different - it's either 30, 31 or 32 cm high depending what and where you measure. And I haven't been drinking. Honest. If anyone's interested in the dimensions: plinth 120cm square-ish, hearth about 95 x 90, inner diameter of hearth 80cm, inner dome 48cm high, door opening 40 cm wide x 30 or 31 or 32cm high. Next it's the clay slip and elephant poo layer. A colleague is out servicing some camera traps and gathering bundles of boom-boom as I type, so hopefully we'll make progress at the weekend. That said, there are three birthdays and two days of 6Nations rugby, so that may be wishful thinking. Cheers for now, mark Attachments:
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Post by umhloti on Feb 10, 2013 14:03:26 GMT
your oven is looking "LEKKER"
Bet you cant wait to cook a pizza in it
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Post by Fat Bob on Feb 10, 2013 17:15:05 GMT
Nice oven - rather big entrance though.
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 10, 2013 18:37:47 GMT
Cheers folks -
Bob - I get you about the entrance looking big; it may be an issue of perpsective, or it may be just a big entrance... i've gone with the 63% thing, and someone else's width, so if it is s disaster, I will blame them, for sure!
Umhloti... thanks once again. The elephant kak, eventually gathered yesterday, was supposed to be finished today but england/ireland forced an early finish after the thrid batch ran out without the dome being covered... i will get it done tomorrow. It is amazing stuff to work woth though, after the clay/sand layer which was hardly a joy, the kak/clay layer is a treat. It would be nice if some one else could have done the mixing. Lazy bastards.
Update soon.
mark
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 11, 2013 10:58:10 GMT
Hello again The elephant poo and clay insulation layer is done and is currently being sheltered from the sun to stop it drying too fast, so a picture will follow tomorrow. I appreciate not everyone can (or would) use elephant poo but I think it has some useful qualities, principally that it is is very fibrous, certainly toward the end of our winter when there's no green grass so pretty much all the eles are eating is bark and roots and leaves and branches from trees. Right now we've had loads of rain and everything is very green, so they are preferentially eating bright green grass which makes for less fibrous poo. So when we went out poo hunting we were looking for old ones, basically. Also, now it is summer, dung beetles tend to get to poo before you can, but there are still good fibrous dung boluses around. We have about 130 elephants (plus quite a few rather cute new babies), and with each producing somewhere between 25 and 125kg of dung a day there is no shortage of it. Mercifully it doesn't stink - I would not want to have spent my weekend up to my elbows in lion scat. I broke up the poo into a tarpaulin, taking advantage of windy weather to naturally 'filter' out the dust, and mixed it with clay slip til it looked right, then slapped it on, rather carefully. Neatly placed it, then, before slapping and shaping it around the dome. I have helpfully attached a photo of some elephant poo. More soon, mark Attachments:
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Post by turkey on Feb 11, 2013 15:22:31 GMT
there is a joke in there somewhere about when stuff hits the oven rather than fan I am sure... will work on it great use of natural resources, and probably better material than most man made stuff really. apparently because lions eat so much meat they have great poo for use in bio generators where you ferment methane gas, you could have quite the bio kitchen by rigging up and store and methane trap to feed a gas burner. theurbanfarmingguys.com/methane-biodigester-how-toyour warm climate will also make it work rather well.
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 11, 2013 18:09:21 GMT
hahaha nice... we actually do collect predator shit for our neighbours at www.greendogsconservation.com bit it is an onerous task... it is pretty foul and usually sits here in our shed for a week or two before they collect it... bleugh
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Post by cannyfradock on Feb 11, 2013 21:32:26 GMT
Mark
I think you have done an excellent job with the materials you had at hand. I really like the oven and can't wait for some pics of the fruit of your hard work labour.
Terry
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Post by limpopomark on Feb 13, 2013 18:04:11 GMT
... and I'm done. Started to run out of mix for the final sand/clay layer so my beautiful dome has become more of a ziggurat/beehive, but it's pretty much done. Now I need some pizza and ash/wood moving equipment, and some mozzarella if the camp budget will allow... Only remaining job is to make the cover for it, but if the weather stays like this I need not rush. Thanks for any help, feedback, comments or just reading. Cheers all - and if anybody fancies a few weeks with a WFO amongst the elephants and lions, we would be grateful for more bookings! tired and (again) sunburnt mark Attachments:
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