More About Ovens







Trailers for Portable Ovens (technical notes by Dan Wing)

One of the most frequent inquiries I’ve had has been about mobile ovens. I've built a couple: one was a simple four-part oven shell, made of refractory cement and cast in quarters over a sand form. Each quarter was small enough for me to move myself, so I could assemble it fresh at different sites. It was much easier than building a trailer, and quicker than a complete new build.

I also built one on a trailer, also out of refractory cement (I figured that no matter how good a trailer we built, road vibration would shake it apart. I later met someone who built a massive earthen oven on a trailer, but he was doing repairs before a year was out.) Hannah and I did several gigs with our trailer oven before deciding that catering pizza parties wasn't for us. When the base got damaged, we weren't sorry to scrap the whole idea.  

However, given the automotive culture we live in, people are going to want ovens on trailers - sometimes even for good reasons! So when Dan Wing, co-author (with Alan Scott) of The Bread Builders, and owner of a well-traveled oven, wrote to the yahoo groups brickoven listserve about how he built his trailer, I asked if he'd make a more complete version of his notes available for posting on this site. Here it is. (104 kb)