Research

Calculating quantities If your bread oven has different dimensions or a different structure than that of the building plan, you can calculate the amount of materials using the following tips:

Retaining wallsThis text can only be consulted in Dutch.

Supporting layerThis text can only be consulted in Dutch.

Building plan Gerrit Van den Dries, together with the MOT, created a design to build a fully functioning oven. We opted for a bread oven in which eighteen to twenty loafs of bread can be baked in one go. Download the building plans here. Do you want to build a smaller oven? During the Workshop build your own oven, we build a small oven for approximately 8 to 10 loafs of bread. Download these plans here. If you want to create your own construction design to your own liking, you can make use of following support tools: How many loafs of bread do you want to bake in the oven? measurements and shape of oven floor shape of vault measurements of oven mouth measurements of substructure

Building materials In general Here we present the various materials that can be used to build an oven. The proposed values are being used under normal circumstances. They won’t be correct in every case. During cold weather you have to take different proportions into account; the mortar proportions depend on the strength of the pressure of the brick, etc. Also not every material can be used everywhere. In coastal areas, the mortar has to be resistant to salt deposits from the sea. So always check which materials are commonly used in your environment to know which ones are suitable.

Which wood to use?

Placing the pump Water was a necessity in every yard and house, in land cultivation and craftsmen's workshops... Before constructing a new house, a well had to be dug to supply water for making the mortar, certainly in remote places. The location of a pump was well thought about, usually not far from the kitchen. Sometimes a pump was installed in or at the side of a building in the form of a small pump house or lean-to. Water pumps only protrude low above the ground (approx. 60-100 cm). There are strong regional differences in wells and pumps. We made a model as shown in the drawing on the right. In areas with shallow water, such as the Meetjesland, short pumps with a fixed handle transverse to the pump rod were found. Elsewhere, a long, pivoting hand crank was used.

What? RCB stands for the Repertorium van de Belgische Handelscatalogi (Directory of Belgian Trade Catalogues). It is an online aid to trace trade catalogues published in Belgium before c. 1950, in public collections. The RCB has search entries via title, company name, town, period, year of publication, RCB code and keyword.

Squaring the trunk Although not strictly necessary, it is recommended to debark the tree butt and remove the sapwood, the outer wood with the latest growth. Despite watering, these outer layers between the heartwood and bark can contain nutrients, making the pump susceptible to weathering, fungi and wood-boring insects. Removing this outer layer is done by squaring the trunk. This can be done both before and after the boring process. A practical benefit of squaring beforehand is that you take excess weight off the trunk which makes it lighter to handle. The trunk is fixed with heavy iron clamps low above ground level. After removing the bark with the barking shovel, we opted in this experiment to square the trunk in an octagonal shape using broad axes. You can use a carpenter's adze, but this works a lot slower. The octogonal shape works best for removing the sapwood and fixing the trunk on the boring trestle and in the well. After squaring, the diameter of our pump body was reduced to about 25 cm. However, pump...