Wood Fired Pizza Oven Part 3

So I got started on the thermal layer of the oven today. The first step here was to get all the building materials together. I have a spot on the farm that has almost pure clay, which is great. However, as it is a desert, the clay is pretty dry and compacted. As seen below.
My solution involved running over it with a forklift...an elegant solution. Most of my problem solving is in this vein.

What I was left with was a nice crushed clay building material. I mixed this with about twice its weight of sand. Clay expands with water and then shrinks when that water/clay dries. I need to keep the oven from shrinking and cracking...too much. Sand doesn't shrink when it dries out so it is a good choice for blending with clay.

The next step is start packing the mud/clay/sand around the prepared sand form. This is a very slow job. You have to be very careful to not break the sand form, not leave any air pockets, and keep the mud layer about 4 inches wide.

8AM

9:30 AM

10:30AM

10:40 (my arms were getting pretty tired at this point)

11:45 AM

After the form dries ("leather" hard for the potters in the crowd) it will shrink a little bit bit but will firm up quite a bit. After a couple of days I will clean up the door opening and cut a chimney. After that we will fire it up and fire off a couple of pizzas. Just to be sure it works before I make it look pretty.

-Neil