Thursday, June 25, 2009

bring on the cob



we dug out clay from our garden which justified my thinking about getting rid of the veg patch and building this oven ,the soil was so clay rich- we followed the books instructions and put a sample in a bottle of water gave it a good shake and within 20 mins we could see it was mostly clay and knew we had to add a lot of sand .

we placed wet newspaper over the wicker frame to give the first layer something even to dry against

1st stage : at a mix of abour 20% clay to 80% sand we stamped out the first layers mix and made small bricks which we build round the wicker dome giving us the first layer about 3 inches thick .This fist layer as shown in the picture sits just within the firebrick base

2nd stage : We then added 1/2 a bale of hay to more 80/20 mix the same as detailed above ,it was harder work mixing this in and took a whole afternoon ,we left it rolled up for a night before making more brick shapes and added this as a 2nd layer the next day probably 4 inches thick which covered the firebrick base -

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