Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions

9. Finishing the Oven Dome

Overview

If you have chosen to build your oven with forms, there

may come a time when you are no longer confident that

the mortar you are using to attach your bricks will keep

gravity from taking over, causing your next chain of bricks

to fall in before you can set the keystone. If it looks like

this might happen to you, it is time for you to use an

internal support to hold the last few chains in place while

the keystone is set, and the mortar dries.

There are several options for building this form, including

plywood, Styrofoam and a rubber ball. This section

describes the process of putting a form in place, cutting

and setting the last chains for brick, and then cutting and

setting the keystone to complete the oven dome.

Building the Form

Because you will set the form in place through the oven

opening, you need to cut your form into pieces that will fit

through it.

Cut a circular piece of plywood to the circumference of the

opening at the top of your oven, and slide it into the oven.

Hold the round form directly underneath the opening at the

top of the oven, and measure the distance from the bottom

of the form to the top of the oven floor. Cut three lengths of

2"x4" or similar material to 1/2" shorter than that length.

Holding the form in place using one of the lengths of 2"x4",

push in a shim to make the form stay in position. Use the

next two lengths of 2"x4" and shim to make everything

secure.

Photos 9.1-9.3 show different ways of supporting the last

few chains.

9.1 A removable form inside the oven.

9.2 A ball as a form

9.3 No forms (this is difficult)

After you have set your final bricks, and the mortar holding

them has dried, you can remove the shims, and slide the

pieces of the form back out the oven door.