[Cob] Cob ovens

[Henry Raduazo]

	I am making Pueblo seed storage pots for the pagan jihad movement  
and I have been firing them in my wood stove. I have a box stove with  
6 inch fire bricks around the bottom of the fire box. The pots seem  
to vitrify all right if I set a roaring fire around them, but I do  
not seem to be able to reach a cone heat of .04. I am not sure if it  
makes any difference. I suppose the acid test is weather mice or rats  
can gnaw their way into the pots.
	Has anyone tried to fire ceramics in a cob oven? And, Has anyone  
tried to modify the cob oven to get increase efficiency or to get  
hotter burns? I was thinking about modifying a standard cob oven with  
a Vogelzang conversion kit

  http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ 
product_6970_20894_20894

I should be able to slow down the burn, increase the heat and reduce  
thermal shock. I could mount the door on two steel fence posts and  
imbed the whole thing in the wall of the oven.  I could even add a  
hot plate:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ 
product_6970_200339111_200339111?cm_sp=Xsells-_-Manual-_-Product%20Page

which could double as a smoke hole or I could use the smoke hole that  
comes with the kit and have an added cook surface. The only  
disadvantage that I can see is the small 11 inch by 10 inch door  
opening and the fact that the vent openings would project above the  
floor of the oven making it a little inconvenient inserting pizzas or  
loaves of bread, but i was thinking about making the oven long and  
thin like a barrel.
	Has anyone tried something like this?


Ed

PS: I understand Ianto is going to try building a Swedish style mass  
heater next year using cob.