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Post by dabwood on Feb 13, 2012 22:07:10 GMT
I thought no better time (with the intro of the new site) to post a very belated introduction.
The site has been a valuable source of information and the variety of oven creations/builds was an insight to what is achievable.
After what felt like months of researching options, changing designs and pricing and re-pricing etc, etc. We finally bit the bullet in June 2011 and purchased a modular oven from Woodfire Gourmet (as you will note - three other members on this site have previously purchased/constructed - gazz_46, Unklefesta and Ows)
This was only after visiting the owners Tanya & William (30mins down the road), who were both really helpful and accommodating. The face to face certainly gave us some comfort in what was a significant purchase.
I started the main build in mid August 2011 and completed the oven by mid Oct 2011, just in time for my daughters birthday pizza party. (still have BBQ and seating area to complete this year)
Anyway, that seemed a rather long intro, see what happens if you don't post straight away!!
I shall try post photos soon under Modular Ovens (ongoing) of my build to date.
Dave
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Post by cannyfradock on Feb 13, 2012 22:36:17 GMT
Hello Dave.....welcome aboard...again
That's a really nice compliment paid to "Woodfire Gourmet". We always love feedback from members .....good or bad. I look forward to any photo's that you upload.
Terry
p.s..You can post a link to their site if you want. I would have...but couldn't find it.
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Post by dabwood on Feb 14, 2012 9:56:49 GMT
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Post by gazz_46 on Feb 16, 2012 18:25:41 GMT
Hi Dave
Belated welcome 2 you, saw ur post and thought i recognised the oven kit........i planned to have mine at least started by now but have been tied up with household projects that ran just a little over time, anyway good to see another variant of the WFG oven......3 so far and all different / excellent
Love ur stonework must have been a huge effort, any hints and tips with the oven?
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Post by turkey on Feb 16, 2012 18:50:20 GMT
welcome to the forum, never too late to register and say hello.
even better if you can give feedback on your own build and or purchases :-)
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Post by turkey on Feb 16, 2012 18:52:51 GMT
welcome to the forum, never too late to register and say hello.
even better if you can give feedback on your own build and or purchases :-)
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Post by dabwood on Feb 17, 2012 12:34:01 GMT
Hi Gazz
I would agree, it was interesting to see the different approaches even with the same kit, and I'm sure your own oven will be another variant, which is half the fun in doing a project like this that you can go in whatever direction you want.
I notice you like myself have went for the floor units rather than firebrick option, which I have to omit I wasn't sure at the time and thought long and hard over. (I purchased a 9 piece kit which was the four part dome and four part floor with the additional floor transition piece)
The Stonework was always something we wanted as a finish, but the design was changed to render finish at one point as trying to get hands on stone at a reasonable price was virtually impossible - thus this was cut to save money. Luckily we had a friend of a friend that had a load of stone just sitting in his garage and we got a whole load free of charge (favour still to be returned, so may still cost me yet!). I found the stonework an enjoyable part of the build, if not a slow process due to amount of mortar I required to keep mixing.
I can only note my experiences and I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert but I would note;
Get your hands on mixer if you don’t already have one – depending on how much concrete and mortar works you are doing this would have saved me loads of time.
Not so much a tip - but what I would mention is that I found it difficult to get the dome, floor pieces all to match exactly and have a consistent 4mm gap between sections - I spent ages trying to get perfect alignment moving one dome piece and then moving other pieces and then moving again and again. As soon as I had perfect alignment between two pieces it would then be off with others! Eventually I just had to go with the best I could achieve (which meant some wider joints in areas).
Also, I now have some cracked joints that require some running repairs (don't know how easy it will be to fit inside the dome to get to these joints). Not sure if this was workmanship issue ie drying out to quickly or if it was a refractory mortar mix issue - I was going carryout repairs with 3:1:1:1 mix rather than the recommend mix from WFG and see how this goes.
What I kept telling myself was just a step at a time, which was always difficult when progress was slow and what’s the worst that could happen!
Good luck with the build and enjoy.
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Post by dabwood on Feb 17, 2012 12:42:40 GMT
Hi Turkey, Thanks for the welcome I was hoping to itemise all my costs (incl. where these were purchased) at some point and include under my build post. I did start off with estimated costs and it would be interesting to see how this compared to actual spend, although I still have works to complete. The majority of the main building supplies was purchased from Jewson’s (thanks to the forum account/discount) The only other site/company I would mention at this point, which is probably only suitable for anybody local, was Brick and Stone (Scotland) Ltd – Nice place to rummage around for those finishing touches - I got some marble slabs and Indian stone paving’s from here along with granite cubes for my arch. These types of suppliers are certainly handy if anybody can find somewhere similar locally, as we were allowed to select bits and pieces with no restrictions on minimum quantities required, etc www.brickandstonescotland.com
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Post by cannyfradock on Feb 18, 2012 16:53:52 GMT
Dabwood
A couple of comments...for the moment.
This new forum is still "under construction"....so direct or indirect comments on things will help me to build another comprehensive interactive forum.
The Scottish link for bricks and stone will be invaluable to people from that area....so I think we should have another "Where to source materials in your area" section....or something like that, with perhaps regional sub-categories.
On the old forum, I always shy'd away from showing prices, preferring to let members or commercials just give a website link to the company in question. Perhaps we should now allow prices be shown on a post......including modular ovens. There are more and more modular ovens coming on the market and the prices vary quite considerably.....I've always tried to avoid confrontation between commercials on our open forum, plus I wouldn't want anybody to buy a cheap modular oven, just to find out that,.....it's a load of crap......just some of my thoughts.....
Terry.
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Post by gazz_46 on Feb 19, 2012 10:25:56 GMT
Hi Gazz I would agree, it was interesting to see the different approaches even with the same kit, and I'm sure your own oven will be another variant, which is half the fun in doing a project like this that you can go in whatever direction you want. I notice you like myself have went for the floor units rather than firebrick option, which I have to omit I wasn't sure at the time and thought long and hard over. (I purchased a 9 piece kit which was the four part dome and four part floor with the additional floor transition piece) The Stonework was always something we wanted as a finish, but the design was changed to render finish at one point as trying to get hands on stone at a reasonable price was virtually impossible I can only note my experiences Not so much a tip - but what I would mention is that I found it difficult to get the dome, floor pieces all to match exactly and have a consistent 4mm gap between sections - I spent ages trying to get perfect alignment moving one dome piece and then moving other pieces and then moving again and again. As soon as I had perfect alignment between two pieces it would then be off with others! Eventually I just had to go with the best I could achieve (which meant some wider joints in areas). Also, I now have some cracked joints that require some running repairs (don't know how easy it will be to fit inside the dome to get to these joints). Not sure if this was workmanship issue ie drying out to quickly or if it was a refractory mortar mix issue What I kept telling myself was just a step at a time, which was always difficult when progress was slow and what’s the worst that could happen! Good luck with the build and enjoy. Thanks Dave Hope to get under way asap and plan is to take it step by step as you did, need to finalise my plan yet tho.....so many good ideas poached from here....... still cant decide between igloo or house and want to introduce a few cheats to speed build without compromising either form or function.....full 12 pc kit fell nicely into plan in that respect! Festa came up with the idea of using kiln cement mortar for dome and seemed to work for him , not sure wot ows used? you might want to look at thier posts again for ur cracks...linked to them in my modular kits post......ongoing......bit of a cheek really as i havent started yet.... Anyway been talkin about it too long and need to pull finger.........lol
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Post by dabwood on Feb 19, 2012 21:35:11 GMT
Dabwood A couple of comments...for the moment. This new forum is still "under construction"....so direct or indirect comments on things will help me to build another comprehensive interactive forum. The Scottish link for bricks and stone will be invaluable to people from that area....so I think we should have another "Where to source materials in your area" section....or something like that, with perhaps regional sub-categories. On the old forum, I always shy'd away from showing prices, preferring to let members or commercials just give a website link to the company in question. Perhaps we should now allow prices be shown on a post......including modular ovens. There are more and more modular ovens coming on the market and the prices vary quite considerably.....I've always tried to avoid confrontation between commercials on our open forum, plus I wouldn't want anybody to buy a cheap modular oven, just to find out that,.....it's a load of crap......just some of my thoughts..... Terry. Terry I think a material sourcing section (build materials/equipment, cooking tools, wood, cooking ingredients, etc) would certainly be helpful and as you note split into regional areas would give members a starting point. However, I completely agree it is difficult to get that happy medium of just giving helpful advice/ information from turning the forum into a commercial battle ground! Rather than pricing specifics of various commercial companies, it maybe better to stick to overall project costs!
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Post by dabwood on Feb 19, 2012 21:44:00 GMT
Gazz,
Always good to have everything planned out, but there will be parts of the build that change as it progresses. I will be watching your build with anticipation to see how you progress.
I shall check the posts as you mention, but I think I may go for the try and see approach!
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