There is still a lot of work to do on the oven, but it felt great to light it. We plan to light a small fire in it each day to help dry it out a bit before putting on the insulation and outer layers. It should also help keep us a bit warmer while we work on the bakery in this chilly weather.
A quick tip to those of you that have never installed windows before - they don't take kindly to being hammered on.
The large metal unit in the front is the water tank that used to make up the bulk of the rear of the truck. In the foreground you can see a piece of the power pole. Most of the rescue equipment on the truck was ejected as it rolled. A huge thank you to the rest of the Gabriola fire fighters for cleaning up my mess. And thanks to whoever it was that was looking after me, and allowed me to walk away from the incident.
We had a great day today at the bakery. We arranged all the rafters in their proper places. We'll spend the next day or so attaching the rafters to each other and to the purlins. Every time we get a step closer to completion, the bakery gets a little more impressive.
We have some walls. Partly. In most of the places they need to be. Braving the last few days of hot, hot weather, we've managed to get the exterior portion of almost all the walls up. Only the front right corner is left. Both front corners will be filled with windows above the short walls. Doing a bit of framing feels great... it goes so quickly. On Monday we will start spreading out and securing the 34 rafters. It is really starting to look like a building now, and it is very satisfying.
As planned, the crane arrived this afternoon, and in just under 2 hours, transformed scattered posts and purlins into the structure of a bakery! As usual, there is still lots to do, but it is a wonderful feeling to have this step done. The crane will be back on Tuesday to lift the 34 6x10 rafters up on to the purlins, then we will space them out and begin attaching them. Everything went very smoothly, and all the pieces fit together nicely - proof of a great job done by everyone involved.
Today was a great day. Tomorrow promises to be even better. The beautiful weather is supposed to hold through the weekend, and we ended today with 10 of 16 posts standing. Tomorrow morning after baking we will help prepare the remaining posts (and arches), and drill holes in the slab for the brackets to help hold the posts. Then, in the afternoon, a crane truck will arrive to lift the purlins up on to the posts, then place the 34 6x10 rafters up on top of the purlins for later placement. By the end of tomorrow afternoon, the bakery structure will basically be in place!
The dome of the wood oven is finished. Now all that needs doing is the chimney, the cladding, the insulation, the facade, etc. Some of these things won't get done right away, but we would like the oven usable fairly soon. The second photo shows the vent in the back side of the dome that will join with the main exhaust pipe coming from the side of the oven below the slab. We placed three thermocouples in the dome to help us when we are learning how to operate the oven efficiently.
Our wood oven dome grew by three rows today. It is amazing the difference a few bricks can make. It feels like we are making some progress again, now that the dome is going up. Paul and i figure we should be able to finish the dome with one more solid days of cutting and mortaring. The lower photo is the view through the bake door. 
Today Paul & I stuck down the perimeter hearth bricks, and brought down the two door frames to decide on how we want to mount them. The one that is upper center is the door we will put the bread in/out through. The actual door part is obviously not there for the photo. We have a few more plywood forms to cut for the dome, and we want to install the doors before starting on the dome.
Today we (mostly Paul) managed to lay the bricks forming the baking surface of the oven. They need some minor adjustments before we can stick the outer few layers of bricks together, but that should be finished tomorrow. Then we can start putting up the forms for the dome, as well as installing the beautiful doors we had made.
OK, maybe "posts are up" is a bit strong. Two posts were up temporarily so that the bottom ends could be scribed and cut to fit the foundation. One of them is still standing. 
More work on the purlins today. We began notching what will be the bottoms of the purlins where they will sit on the posts.
Almost done. We spent yesterday and today trying to get our purlins finished. We almost got our last purlin milled today, but we had to dash off to a motor vehicle accident page for the fire department. There is about 40 minutes of sawing left to finish the last one. They'll definitely look impressive in the bakery. We're hoping that building the oven will get us pumped-up enough to lift them up onto the posts when its time.
We finished peeling the purlins today, and began setting up a jig for the Alaskan mill. It took a while, and a fair amount of fiddling, but we finally got it set up satisfactorily, then came the slow job of actually cutting it. In the end, it turned out very well. Only 3 more purlins to mill. The kids seem to love sawdust and planer shavings only slightly less than sand.
They are long, smooth, and have gorgeous grain.
We might not be able to work on the oven right now, but the building site was a busy place today (even if its not obvious from the photo). Our logs were being milled into lumber, posts, and beams. Our beams were being sanded and prepped for installation once the posts and purlins are in place. Okay, when I summarize that way, it doesn't sound like that busy of a day, but it was, with lots of people working.
The oven is ready for the slab to be poured, but we aren't. We need more "needles". For each bag of cement we use for the slab, we need to add 1 pound of 1" long stainless steel needles to give it added strength to span the 3 foot gaps on each side of the oven. Hopefully the back ordered needles will arrive soon.
After a slow Saturday and slower Sunday, I went into Nanaimo today to pick up our much needed zonolite. When I got back, our contractor's crew were busy preparing for the next building stage. They had peeled the bark off most of the logs, and were setting up an Alaskan chainsaw mill to start getting the posts ready.
We picked up all the perlite we could find on Gabriola this morning, but still came up a bit short. We placed a few more insulating bricks on the right side, but couldn't go much further. The slab will sit on a full ring of bricks as set up on the right side of the oven. The wall down the middle will also be covered with insulating bricks, and those will support the slab down the middle.
Today we mixed our zonolite with cement and water and shoveled it on top of the wonder board. We leveled it and started placing insulating bricks. We finished the bottom layer of bricks on the right side of the oven. There are more layers of bricks to go on, and we need some more zonolite for the left side. The opening you see in the photo is for the chimney ducting. The heated air will flow from the top of the fire box around the semicircle, and out the ducting. The slab and hearth bricks will sit above the insulating bricks to come. They will be supported around the edges and down the middle. More details on the slab when we get to it.
Today we continued with the oven. We started building the fire box, using both insulating bricks (white), and fire bricks (orange). The fires will be built on a grate which sits on the supporting rows of bricks along the edges of the bottom of the the fire box.
Today we felt like starting the oven, so we did. We scooped a friend's cement mixer and got going. The oven was going to be rectangular, but we decided circles are nicer, so we built a round wall for the base. The gap in the front is where the fire box will be built. The cinder blocks sitting in seemingly random places within the walls are to support the wonder board which will in turn support the zonolite insulation layer which will be below the layer of insulating bricks. I think the photo shows it pretty well. Hey! There's a block missing in the top row! Oh, just a second, thats where the heated air goes out and up to the chimney.
A quick tip for budding masons: Paul discovered that you can get really smooth joints if you lick them.