Building a small charcoal/wood bread/pizza oven for home use

**Gert Odendaal** · 30-12-2014, 20:07

Good day memebers
Being on holiday in the Cape, Durbanville does not mean I can sit with folded hands..the family saw the cast oven used at our Gelofte Fees festival and wants one for home use...this is a step by step build...keep in mind we only have electrical and hand equipment and no workbench to work on...we bought two pieces of 16 mm chipboard and one piece of Masonite.

Step 1
Build a structure /form of the oven to build the refractory bricks around it.

The second stage/step will be the building procedure, the company supplying the refractory bricks and cement in the Western Cape is Sarum Engineering, http://www.sarumengineering.co.za/products.htm , they will only be open on the 5 th of January , so the building process will only commence on the 5 th of January.

**Gert Odendaal** · 04-01-2015, 21:07

Tomorrow will see us purchasing the bricks...and we will commence building the oven. I will upload all the building procedures. It really is something I look forward doing.

**PistolBoy** · 04-01-2015, 21:28

Well done so far. This looks like sometging anyone of us could build. Thanks for your higly detaild and informative posts. Some times they feel like a tutorial.

**SmokinGun** · 04-01-2015, 21:39

A friend of mine used a Pilates blowup ball as his mold, built clay and bricks around it, once dried he burst the ball and now he has the perfect oven!

**BandK** · 04-01-2015, 21:46

Subscribed

**Gert Odendaal** · 04-01-2015, 22:39

Thank you for the kind replies, when the oven is completed we will make a fire inside the oven and the wooden frame will burn away to leave a nice bread oven standing.

..my next project will be a dangerous game hunting ammunition leather belt, I will wear it when shooting BASA shooting days...while I am on holiday in the Cape I want to drive to Wellington to purchase leather at a whole sale leather supplier in Wellington.

**Gert Odendaal** · 05-01-2015, 11:31

Good Morning Members
We bought all the material needed for the building process. We are commencing with cutting the bricks to the shape of the oven. I will take as many photos as possible to explain every step of this build. I will include a material price list of every item we are using.

Fire brick - R632.00 (R11.50 -55 x fire bricks)
Ready mix fire clay (25 kg) - R250
Small bag of Portland cement- R25
Bag of yellow oxide to color mix- R8-50
Chimney 500x110x2 stainless steel pipe R100
Steel door R50

I did not determine the price on the wooden frame...approximately R150 will be a safe estimation.

I will upload photos...

**Gert Odendaal** · 05-01-2015, 22:16

Facts:
This is not an easy project to do, it is difficult to cut the fire bricks with a grinder.We used a diamond blade and it really is extremely difficult to cut the bricks.
A lot of cutting is to be done.

The frame we build is not stable, it makes it very difficult to build around it.

You definitely needs to be two persons building ....

I would definitely cast any other oven I want to make in the future...going the building route is extremely difficult and arduous work ....I have pain where I even not sure I have muscles ..

We commenced with the project by trying to work out how best we have to arrange the bricks to get a strong build and less bricks cut...

The first mistake I made was to let some bricks be aligned with the first line of bricks...mistake...the joints need to be miss-aligned to give you more strength in the brick formation...so I had to break down the second line and start a- fresh ....

We made progress with cutting the bricks faster as we continue...

We spend nine hours building the oven non stop...

Determining how many bricks are needed:

Material that needs to be transform into a functional oven:

Building a oven by covering the frame with bricks...I did use some white silicon to assist with securing the bricks to the wooden frame as well...

I will upload the final photos regarding the roof of the oven, I had to cut the middle bricks taper so it can wedge into the other bricks ensuring a stronger build.

**Gert Odendaal** · 06-01-2015, 09:52

I filled the spaces between the bricks with a mixture of yellow oxide and cement for a better finish.

**Gert Odendaal** · 07-01-2015, 10:00

We will move the oven to where it needs to be standing permanently, there I will clean the outside from all the cement /fire clay stains. I will then cut out the door and commencing to burn the wooden frame from inside..this will probably set the clay when fired up making it even stronger....