Hello all! Been off forum for rather a long time, busy setting up a business and hardly being in, which is nice, but I shall endeavour to rectify that now that I'm no longer in the rat race...
First thing now that I'm back though, is a question on behalf of my Sister who is working in Liberia, helping to set up a refugee camp for people from Cote D'Ivoire. She's trying to set up a field baking project there, as a means to get people producing their own food, and to bring them together, but having problems at stage 1: The oven.
They're essentially building a clay cob of 1.5m across by 1m high, I've never gone that big, so wondering if size is an issue. When they dig the sand out it's collapsing, the material they're using is straight out of the ground so I'm not sure of the clay content, her description of it feeling 'quite clay-y' didn't help me much. She's wondering if it's safe to add a bit of cement, I've never tried...
Her other question was whether they could use chicken wire between sand and cement to create integrity. Any thoughts?
Essentially, I've only ever done this on a small scale for fun, any advice/tutorials on larger scale ovens or working with raw materials would be very much appreciated!
Cheers, Iona
First thing now that I'm back though, is a question on behalf of my Sister who is working in Liberia, helping to set up a refugee camp for people from Cote D'Ivoire. She's trying to set up a field baking project there, as a means to get people producing their own food, and to bring them together, but having problems at stage 1: The oven.
They're essentially building a clay cob of 1.5m across by 1m high, I've never gone that big, so wondering if size is an issue. When they dig the sand out it's collapsing, the material they're using is straight out of the ground so I'm not sure of the clay content, her description of it feeling 'quite clay-y' didn't help me much. She's wondering if it's safe to add a bit of cement, I've never tried...
Her other question was whether they could use chicken wire between sand and cement to create integrity. Any thoughts?
Essentially, I've only ever done this on a small scale for fun, any advice/tutorials on larger scale ovens or working with raw materials would be very much appreciated!
Cheers, Iona