Mud War, First Batlle is Finished

I finally finished the first layer of the oven last Monday, May 2. The clay was in a better workable state, but still took me sometime to finish it. Mostly because at the end I didn't have any more clay, so I went to my studio and SURPRISE! I found red clay in a very good condition. This clay has been there for years, I don't even know what clay it is, but it was there waiting for me to finish the dome of the oven, so I added sand to it and finished the top. I let the oven dry for two days with a canvas to help it dry and a tarp on top of it to protect it from the rain. While I waited these two days I listed some of my jewelry on my Etsy store. Check it out:   http://www.etsy.com/shop/anacavalcanti?ref=si_shop

Today the clay was harder than when I finished it last Monday, so I could cut the door and get all the sand, bricks and newspaper from inside. I thought it would be hard to take the bricks out, I had filled two bags of sand when the second brick finally came out, after that the others were easy to remove. The inside was still very wet, so the newspaper was badly stuck and removing it was difficult. I used my heat gun from my studio and dry the inside a bit, so the paper would come out easier.


After all the sand and newspaper were out I measured the door again, did some adjustments and shaped it better. Now I have the first layer. Next is the insulation layer, but that has to wait until next Monday. This weekend is a busy one.
A photographic summary of these days is on the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3fz9eohSSE