This last weekend we got a good start on El Horno de Union (that's the name that Tarah and I came up with tonight but we're definitely game for suggestions). We picked up ~12, 5 gal buckets of clay from a fellow cobber out in Bothell (this stuff is so pure it could be potters clay), 7 bags of gravel/sand from home depot's cement department, and 5 big bags of sawdust from Compton Lumber on 1st (they were really great about it; they just have a huge room sized dumptster that all the shavings get blown into so I climed in and scooped away). With that we were ready to start cobbing.
We ended up getting level to the firebrick deck. We'll come back to it next weekend.
Structurally the oven is all done now. We need to let it cure for a couple more days and then we'll take out the door (praying that it doesn't collapse), and remove the sand form from inside. After that we will still only light small fires, curing it slowly for a couple more weeks. On Monday I used the grill area on the side; it worked but the fire didn't stay very hot so I may need to add a grate that the coals sit on for better air flow. The lines all over it are to enable the final decorative layer to stick. We'll do that layer out of terracotta colored clay and press beach glass into it. The chimney is made of an old Seattle clay sewer pipe that I got from my neighbor; it's not for the oven, it was intended to encourage good airflow across the grilling area but at this point it seems to be more for looks than anything. More pics at http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-hornos/web/union-framilys-horno-construction.
