Sculpting the Void and More Stomping in Mud

We had another great session this past weekend, with a lot more mud-stomping and the dome of our oven finally taking shape!

There it is, the sand mound, bird's eye view.

The mud we mixed up last week needed re-hydrating, and this time we added a big bag of sand to it, to act like grog does - to help the clay-mud material resist cracking as it dries and heats up. And then once it was mixed and more or less ready to go, we left that to start building the sand dome.

This is actually the empty space of the oven that we're forming, 16 inches high and about 22 inches in diameter. The sand gets covered with clay-mud, and later we'll scoop it all out - a "lost-sand process" - and be left with just an empty space within a clay-mud dome. Or in other words, a mud oven. It's fun to do a trick with your head and try to visualize the sculpting of negative space... (And this brings us close to another part of the Craft of Fire which is all about mold-making and casting - but that's still to come.)

So while Dani B. acted as photographer and, ahem, "site supervisor", Orsi and Gloria got back to mixing up the mud and sand. And I took their freshly stomped mud mix and started applying it to the sand form in order to build the walls of our oven.

We first covered the sand form with wet newspaper so that when it comes time to scoop out the sand, we'll know when to stop. The walls are thick - about 3" - so it took maybe an hour to cover the whole thing. Our hands were nicely tenderized from the sandy grit in the mud by the end, so we assume we packed the mud in tightly enough, but we won't know until we remove all the sand and the oven dries out fully. If it cracks too much or falls apart, we'll know why.

And to finish, just after threatening to throw a large pile of mud at Dani who was suspiciously not-muddy...

...we all sat down to enjoy coffee and food as we always do.

Next up: carving a door, scooping out the sand and more insulation.