Ernie and Erica's shipable core questions

Hello E&E

It was great really cool to watch you trouble shoot and then assemble the shipable core RMH in Paul's outdoor garage kitchen(?)!

I am preparing to cast a core myself and like you, feel some firebrick around the feed tube makes a ton of sense. My thought was to cut them at 45 degree angles so they keyed together (seams radiating out from each corner) and then using 1/4" of Roxul around them to give a little "breathing room", since they are different from the core in regards to expansion and contraction. (I am going to make a wooden "core core" that has the outside measurements of the inside of the FT/BT/HR to hold the bricks in place and create tripwires for turbulence and then burn it out.)

I noticed you guys just built right around your firebricks, how's it holding up? Expansion/contraction issue?

Have you any thoughts as to solving your bottom issue? How much heavier would it be with a bottom, or could that be a separate piece? Popping fire brick?! That's just plain awesome!

Keep up the great work, looking forward to seeing your evolving process~p

Perhaps I missed the post where they explain, why not just cast the bottom in the first place?

Hi Mike.

Sorry I didn't make it clear that the core I am speaking of is on the RMH DVD set.

I too wondered why no bottom but have inferred many things...

-to keep weight down
-so the end user can create a base of their own easily and cheaply with different materials
-maybe that would ship separately if one wanted one
-perhaps they hadn't though out the structural integrity of it

Dunno really, and very curious!

~p

Ditto, I too was wondering why they didn't just have a bottom on it, seems it would alleviate most of the exploding cement issues.