Glorious Sunshine!

Living in a tropical country I've taken sunshine for granted, but today it was just great. After a whole week of rain we finally get a full day of sun, which meant time to work on the oven. I put in a whole day (morning and afternoon) working on the oven and made the most of the good weather. Made great progress and things are finally starting to take shape. Even better, I got to use the power tools!



The day started with finishing the oven floor, which is pretty much the foundation for the whole oven. After double checking dimensions I needed to add a few more rows of bricks from the past weeks work. That took most of the morning.



There were some ridges that would get in the way of the pizzas on the floor so I whipped out the angle grinder to smoothen out the bricks. A wonderful tool, the angle grinder. So versatile and handy. I used it grind bricks on the floor. Later in the afternoon, I would use it cut up bricks.

The first chain of bricks which forms the base of the dome was also laid out today. I stacked them up first to check the fit and put in the styrofoam forms that were cut last week. Things were really starting to take shape.











And finally, it was time to actually mortar the bricks. That's masonry speak for cementing the bricks together. It was slow going at first, but after a few bricks I started to get the hang of it and finished the whole first chain by the end of the day.



And let's not forget my ever faithful helper, Cristina. She helped keep the bricks by replenishing the supply in the pail after I would pull them out. Couldn't have made as much progress today without her.