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Building a Masonry Bread Oven
In the first half of
2001, three of our intrepid members (namely, Ed
Williams, Chuck Martin, and Nick Scott), with other
members in tow, built a wood fired masonry oven at
Cadron Settlement Park. The oven is patterned after
the French ovens still found on farmsteads across the
province of Quebec, Canada. We began hand hewing the
logs for the oven base in January 2001 and laid the
concrete foundation in March. We finished the oven in
July and made out first loaves of bread the first
weekend of October. EARA regularly holds events at
Cadron Settlement Park that feature the use of the
oven. The paragraphs below describe how the oven was
built.
Click on the small bullets 
to see pictures of the progress
and then use your browser's "back" button to return
to this page.
Ed Williams started the
process in January, 2001, by hewing logs that would
become the foundation of the oven.
This hewing process took quite a while, so
in between whacks, we poured the concrete foundation in March. It is 4- by 6- by 6-feet.
Everyone got into the
act. Josie Rice helped with the hewing and when she got tired. . . . .
her younger sister Katie took over.
The hewn timbers were
laid on the concrete foundation, with the rows of
timbers alternating to provide better support.
The finished platform is
now ready to be filled.
The
platform was back-filled wih clay and rock, ready for the next layer
of concrete.
Another 6 inches of
concrete is poured on top of the base. Pool cooping
brick is laid in the first row. Firebrick is set on
the side to created a 4-inch base of firebrick. The
side and back of the oven are mortared in. This was
finished in July.
The first three courses
of the dome are mortared in. Since the dome exerts
pressure on the outside wall, boards are in place to
hold the oven together until the mortar sets. This
was in July and the temperature was over 100 degrees!
Chuck set up his modern dining fly to help us stay
cool. Chuck also thought it was time to get Ed in the
picture. The next step is to fill in the front of the
oven with firebrick.
Chuck, "You know, the
oven would work better if you had used firebrick." This is an old joke, ask
Chuck about it the next time you see him.
Laurine Williams put
stucco on the upper concrete slab. The bricks are lined with
foil to give a space between the bricks and the
concrete top to allow for heat expansion of the
bricks. Wire is in place to give the concrete
strength. Also, look at the door and you will see a
wooden form used the build the arch. We used another
arch to build the dome. The process is to start
laying brick at each end of the form and the last
brick, the one in the middle, should fit real tight.
Wooden forms are placed
to allow for 3 to 4 inches of concrete to cover the
bricks.
Ed, Chuck, and Nick
mixed concrete and shoveled it into the form. Chuck
pounded the sides of the form to work the concrete
down.
The form came off and
the oven is ready for some stucco.
Look inside the oven (some
cracks still need to be filled). Can't you just smell the
bread baking?
On July 21, the oven was
finished with a stucco coat of earthen red.
We built a small fire to test
the draft. Everything went fine, so we let it cure for a while.
In October, Ed Williams
baked biscuits and pizza for 300 middle school
students from Conway Public Schools.
Since completion, we
have gotten much use of the oven and have added a
shake roof shed over the oven to help protect it from
the elements. The oven resides at Cadron Settlement
Park, located just west of Conway, Arkansas, on the
north side of the Arkansas River. Scheduled
activities at Cadron are included in the link
"Upcoming Events". Hope to see you there!