At the beginning of this project I was thinking I'd use whatever they liked. My expectations were modest. Even after seeing the corner pieces I was slow to warm to the thin brick.
After first appearing a washed out looking grey to me, I was surprised to see it begin to take on a rich nutty brown even before pointing.
Back-cutting and
notching allow the
corners to wrap
deeper into the
fire box.
Once the ends had wrapped
a full brick thickness beyond the face, their apparent lack of support was spoiling the effect.
The face now supported strongly by a hearth that seems to have always run half a brick deep into the wall, seems quite solid.
The "Ironworks" (thin brick) came from Alabama Brick Delivery and will be pointed with Argos Lite Beige mortar and struck concave.
While checking the copy above last night I noticed that I had stumbled the running bond-ness of my last minute under pin. Duh? I got embarrassed and reverted the post to a draft till I could correct it and update the picture.
Instead, today when I arrived the plan had changed again. Apparently the corner pieces made the front too wide for the already purchased mantle. Once the corner pieces had been cleaned, beveled, and installed in the fire box opening, the under pins didn't seem to matter much anymore.
Oh well, "Keep moving forward". I've cleared the firebox opening, set the ledger bridge in place and I'm set to top out and point up tomorrow. Woo-Hoo!
On the next to the last cut I finally tried
out the nippers for a cut.
First a squeeze on one edge then a harder one on the other side. My last cuts were neat and quiet.
Even without the corner wrap around pieces the under-lap faux foundation sells the face bricks as bricks that have plastered ends. Oy, whatta look!
Still not dry enough to reveal its final color, it's already selling the brick look with it's concave struck joints. The deeply back beveled corner bricks look like the ends of bricks. Each one had to be trimmed as well as back beveled because of the sharply angled sides of the firebox.
This 33 or so square feet of thin brick would have taken about an hour to grout. It took 3 hours to point and strike. I don't know if I'd do it again, but I like the look.
Since last Monday morning started rainy I went to Iron City out by The Golden Rule in Irondale (hardly delicious at all) to find a capstone.
I fitted my paper pattern onto several
likely stones looking for one with good
color (it's orange on the other side)
and an acceptable shape.
Having a tree fall on it wasn't a good thing, but it may actually save this ten year old, backyard, pizza oven. The ragged hole next to the flue doesn't look new.
Water working it's way out had weakened and eroded the mortar in many places leaving voids. Orange sand that had once been buff colored mortar was sprouting weeds in several places.
Careful picking, and deep moist re-pointing in stages were required, before more serious repairs could begin.
With a scaffold in place re-pointing and repairing the chimney face went quickly.
The oven door arch and the top the dome went back together like they'd always been that way, even though with no picture and lots of extra rocks around it was guess work.
Some of the largest cavities were around the lower oven.
Filling them helped strengthen the whole oven face.
After plugging the flue to keep any
mortar or stone debris from falling
out of reach David (Orange) and I
hoisted the capstone onto the scaffold settled it into place. Chinking around under the capstone and supplementing
the pointing used up the last bucket of mud and the rest of the day.
It would have been way too risky to lift the capstone over our heads with a hole in it. Also the vibration
of cutting it in place might have caused the mud to migrate under the stone so we waited till the next day to cut the new chimney hole.
Once the chimney hat was re-fitted, the scaffold was returned and the footing was exposed, all that was left was to make a new door for the oven.
The oak from the stone pallet made a sturdy slow burning (especially when wet) replacement door.
Ok, now if we could just get some moss to grow on the Doggy Dome
Oh yeah, back off pizza boy.
A month ago when I was sizing up this pizza oven-barbecue for a re-pointing and a new door it was looking a lot better. It had tree hanging from a power line above it, but other than that it looked pretty good. Anyway, if the power company is through dropping trees on it for a while, I'm looking forward to getting this old guy turning out pizzas again soon.
Trees are interesting neighbors, even if they do stumble around when they party too hard. I'm sure the Keeblers have to deal with this sort of thing all the time.
I'm just glad most of the pieces of this puzzle seem to be laying near
where they fell. Even the chimney hat looks salvageable. Woo-hoo!
a full brick thickness beyond the face, their apparent lack of support was spoiling the effect.
While checking the copy above last night I noticed that I had stumbled the running bond-ness of my last minute under pin. Duh? I got embarrassed and reverted the post to a draft till I could correct it and update the picture. 
Even without the corner wrap around pieces the under-lap faux foundation sells the face bricks as bricks that have plastered ends. Oy, whatta look!
