Chimney

While the insulating layer was going on, I made a couple of custom adobe chimney blocks. Once these had hardened a bit, I extended the chimney base up about 10 inches. The blocks were molded before I had the straw on site so I mixed sawdust into the mud to reduce cracking. But I had the straw when I laid them up, so that's what you see in the mud "mortar".





Once the block was in place, I plastered it smooth. The first part of the oven to be in a finished state. I was elated at this point. My past experiences with oven chimney building had put me in a very reluctant state about this part of the process. But this chimney was a breeze to design and build.









Here it is shown with about one third of the oven having it's final mud layer.


















Next I made up several adobe bricks to finish the chimney top. It was sunny, so I only had to wait about 30 hours for them to firm up nicely. Then I made an arch over the chimney, filled in the front face, but left it open on the back to accommodate a stove pipe.