Having completed the basic structure, it was then a process of adding more layers of insulation and building up the chimney with more cans of tomatoes. I used clay,sand and horseshit. I thought this would be a good plan from doing a little bit of research where I found that on old houses and in different parts of the world this was considered a good and cheap way of using natural materials. Although it was somewhat smelly, I was able to mix it to a beautiful smooth consistency which could be trowelled on. The chimney I just built up and packed the mixture aroud it. Unfortunately I don' t have any pictures of the chimney construction but it was really quite simple as long as the mixture wasn't too wet. So, thats about that for the initial completion of the oven which was finished in AUG 2008 and has been successfully used ever since. We had a really good party for its official opening (lots of interest from everybody) and cooked about 40 pizzas which turned out very successfully even though it poured with rain all night. It wasn't used extensively throughout the winter and I was concerned that the cold and damp would affect it, even though it was covered with a tarpaulin. However it survived ok, we even had a hangover party on new years day which was a great success.
Having got this far I decided to put a roof over it - will cover that next time.

Things seem to be running from bottom to top - not sure what to do about this so you,ll have to bear with me. I'll get onto the dome now - need lots of sand to create it! I put some bags of gravel at the bottom of the dome to help give it a higher base to build on. Then it was a matter of forming a dome and trying to maintain the shape. I mixed quite alot of water with the sand and beat with a piece of wood to try and compact it other wise at a certain height it just starts to fall off and you don't seem to be getting anywhwere. Damp newspaper was laid on the sand dome to prevent the clay sticking to the sand and making it easier to get the sand out once the clay dome has been formed.
The clay mix was 25% clay and 75% sand mixed to a smooth consistency.
Once the first layer of clay has been put on, I left it for about 24hrs before cutting out the door and removing the sand. Then had to cut a little more out for the chimney, constructed from industrial sized tins of tomatoes with the bottoms cut out. This gave achimney of about 6ins diameter which works really well and gives a good draw for the fire. Having done this I felt I had to try it out and lit the first fire to help dry the clay!
Now it was just a matter of adding more clay to the dome for insulation. I mixed clay, sand and horseshit to get a really smooth consistency and then just kept lathering it on - can't remember how many layers I eventually did but I guess the oven is about 6-7ins thick.

Thought I'd add alittle more on building the oven. Once the blocks were up I had to shutter the top and lay the base for the oven to sit on. It was a sand, gravel and cement mix with some old bits of reinforcing rods that I had lying around in the garden. As I recall I did this and then laid about 2ins of vermiculite, sand and cement to give a bit of insulation.
The next job was laying down a bed of sand to lay the fire bricks on. I managed to scrounge some bricks from a skip for the base and then retrieved some more from a friend's old storage radiators that he was going to throw out. This gave me enough fire bricks to lay the base and construct a first course of bricks upon which I could then start building with clay.