Has anyone in the group done this yet? I want to make a new fireback for my Napoleon NZ3000, what would be a good mix to use to cast it? Heat-Stop 50 with a wire mesh? Some of you may remember my fireplace....
I wouldn’t embed any metal in refractory- 2 different rates of thermal expansion will lead to failure. Can you show what this fireback looks like, Scott?
It's still in the stove, but I think chicken wire would be fine (the really thin stuff). I haven't taken it out yet, and I'm at work right now. It's a flat refractory, approx 20"×14", 1.5" thick. You can buy the refractory kit from Napoleon for around 200 bucks, but I'm cheap......lol
Find/call a local refractory supplier. I used Allen Refractory when I did my pizza oven. The engineer there speced everything and figured up the quantities for me. I forget how much a bag was but it was not "cheap" $200 sounds reasonable. IIRC I had over 2k in materials. 20x14 I'd probably do 2 interlocking pieces so it can move some.
When I built my test bed rocket stove I went to A & H (industrial refractory supplier) and had similar experience as ironpony- great support and aimed in the right direction… answered all my questions, too. I think I paid right around $50 for a 40-50 lb bag of dense refractory, good to 3000°F and the stuff was pretty strong/durable. I also tried some pneumatic hammer applied refractory- a very dry mix that is hammered in place in furnaces…. That was the toughest stuff I messed with, but a bear to mix and form. Scotty Overkill, if you do the way of an industrial supply house, be sure to ask them to include the data sheet for dry bagged- water amount/qty is crucial when mixing refractory.
I'm considering that, also kicking around cutting some of the thin fire brick and "tongue and grooving" them to interlock for that back wall.
Hmm...maybe you could "glue" (furnace cement) the bricks to a thinner (cheaper) sheet of fiberboard to help hold it all together too?
You can't be that cheap For the factory replacement components compared to messing around. My opinion. No offense! Beauty setup by the way.
I'm actually not cheap at all, bit I'd like to make my own for fitment and for piece of mind knowing I can when in a pinch.... Thank you for the compliments on the fireplace, there's a full build thread in here somewhere showing the entire process
So steal the bags from Barcroftb (he will probably give them too you for beer or pizza) in Outdoor pizza oven