Pizza!

Today I cooked two pizzas in my oven, and they came out quite well. I used a basic pizza dough recipe, flour, water, olive oil and yeast. It seemed to cook well in the oven, the mozzarella took a while to melt, I think the walls of the oven could have done with being a bit hotter, but I do not know. I shall have a few more attempts soon as I am going to be cooking for the family at xmas time...

I hope to make a Peel soon as using a fish slice/spatula was not ideal for moving the pizzas in and out of the oven. Also I will be making a door for the oven, and completing the roof as I have just acquired some roof tiles from Freecycle, hopefully it will be enough to cover the roof.

Oven shelter

Its been a while since I posted. I have not been very active of late, last week I put the roof joists in and covered them with roofing felt, with the help of my father. The oven is now rain proof, but still gets damp from the moisture in the air. Last time I lit a fire in the oven I baked a sweetcorn and a potato, both were rather nice, had that extra flavor of being cooked in wood fire.

Oven Shelter

The basic frame for the oven shelter was put up yesterday afternoon, and the uprights concreted in place.

Making Bellows Part Two

So I had my two halves of my bellows, next set was to cut a small square of leather to cover the inlet hole, shown in the picture here. The piece of leather was about 5cm by 5cm and tacked down one side so that it could flap about. The idea is that air can be drawn in when expanding the bellows, but not when deflating them, so all the air goes out the nozzle. I think I could have done with a slightly thicker bit of leather for this bit, as my valve does not work to well. My leather is 1.5mm thick (that is what the description on eBay said I have not measured it myself) so maybe 3mm or something like that could have been better for the valve.
Also I think thicker leather for the hinge would have been a good idea too, I lost the picture of the hinge piece, but it is easy to imagine the two boards back together so they make the bellows shape, then tacked together by a rectangle of leather forming a hinge mechanism.
Next came the tricky bit, cutting and fitting the piece of leather for chamber of the bellows, I was not to sure on the shape of the piece of leather I need, so I tested it with paper to start with, having the bellows open then wrapping a sheet of newspaper round them and cutting it to shape. The cut was roughly the shape of my sketch to the left. Once this was cut, I started by spreading glue along the edge of the boards then tacking the straight edge to the bottom board (the one with the valve on), then it gets a bit more difficult, tacking along the second board. I started by putting a tack in each side of the nose and then one partly in at the handle, as I thought I may need to move that one at some point (which I did) I tacked down either side until i got to the handle, here the leather did odd things and I was unsure whether or not I could make a cut to sort out the problem. In the end I decided to play it safe and fold the leather as neatly as possible and tack it in place which seemed to work. then I trimmed off the excess leather. and it was time for the Final part, the nose cover, to make the hinge air tight. This shape to the right, is roughly how the piece of leather looked. It took me a long while to work out the shape, that had to fold round the edges of the bellows, but once it was cut, it was just a case of gluing and tacking, and the bellows were complete.

Making Bellows Part One

I thought I would start with a tools and materials list. Tools: Jigsaw/Coping saw, Plane/Rasp/Sandpaper, Handsaw, C Clamps, Drill/14mm wood bit, Stanley, Pin hammer. Materials: Wood, Leather, Copper pipe, Upholstery tacks.

I first drew a pattern for how I wanted my bellows to look. I used a piece of newspaper, my design was about 35cm long, by about 16cm at the widest point. I then cut this out and traced it on to my wood, I had found an old piece of oak, it was about 2cm thick, I think I could have done with it being a bit thinner, but not to much, the oak is a bit heavy.
Once I had traced my design on to one piece of oak, I clamped it onto a second piece of oak so I could cut out both halves of the bellows at once using a jigsaw. I had to move the clamps every now ant then to get the jigsaw all the way round but it was easy to keep the two boards aligned. As you may be able to see in the picture but skills with a jigsaw an not great, the bellows are not symmetrical, and it is a bit rough round the edges. Luckily I had tools to help me even out the shape, I used a small plane and some sandpaper to get the general shape looking a bit better. At this point the boards were still clamped together to help keep them the same shape. I then released them from the clamps and sanded all the edges and surfaces to make the bellows comfortable to handle.

Next I cut about 4cm off the end of on of the boards and glued it to the other. I also used 2 small screws for extra strength. The screws have to be place clear of the middle as next I bored down through this lengthwise with a drill, to make the opening for the air to come out when the bellows are in use. While I had the drill out, I put a hole in the middle of this board for the air to come in when the bellows expand. In the picture on the right you can see I have also used a length of copper pipe for the nozzle, I held it in place with a couple of upholstery tacks. I had thought about using various brass fitting an, but in the end a bit of pipe was the easiest option.

I shall continue tomorrow with the 'valve', hinge and the leather 'shoe' of the bellows.

Bellows!

I have completed my bellows! How I did it coming up later...

Fire!

Yesterday I had a small fire goinbg in the oven or about an hour, started to dry out the oven quite a bit, but with the weather turning, keeping it dry will be difficult. I have the timber for making the shelter, and I have dug the holes for the four up-rights. As I am going to tile the roof of the shelter, I will be concreting the posts in so that they do not give way.
Also started work on the bellows, shall post about that soon...