Pietree Orchards' Brick Oven: Worth Mocking

The technical details of building brick domes make mocking up an efficient effort prior to mortaring.
A large arch form with cut-outs where the mouth profile matches make handling the form a bit easier.  A face arch this big will also be a boon to the baker while providing a very large throat for smoke to naturally draft out the chimney.

Mocking up arches provides an accurate count of bricks cut to the dimensions that the mouth and throat require.  Cutting bricks in advance isolates the loud, sometimes dusty work to a location away from the build.  Then, mortaring and construction of the dome becomes a fast and quiet process.

The current project at Pietree Orchard: www.pietreeorchards.com/, being a 54" interior oven, makes mocking up even more pertinent.  With double-thick floor and dome mass, planning the buttresses, spring bricks, and throat dimensions while increasing handling, greatly reduces construction time and on-the-fly changes.  The gaps in the arch are there to account for the accumulated thin mortar joints when the arch is made permanent.