So here is a front and back picture of the oven as it stands at the end of today. You’ll notice that everything is blended and filled. I won’t lie this was a lot of work and I’m sore but, happy with the results. I’m letting this all dry before I smooth it all out. Tomorrow I’ll use some light slip to smooth out everything. I was thinking about using a technique that I read about where a rag soaked in slip is used to smooth everything out. I’ll decide tomorrow whether or not to try it.
I did all of the blending and filling by using a heavy slip mixed with sand. I added some of the left over cob plaster mix to the heavy slip. This allowed me to brush it on with a paint brush. This technique worked really well to build up areas slowly and controlled to blend an fill everything but, it does leave a rougher surface. So I’ll let it dry and smooth it all out tomorrow.
Sorry for the glare in this picture. The time of day made it really hard to get a decent picture from this side but, you can still see the blended state of the backside of the oven.
Also while I was working on the outside of the oven my son Charles was working on the inside thermal layer. I’ll detail that in the next post.