Yup, got the dome all completed, bricked up. And was it a pain! Each brick had to be cut individually and had different angles, sometimes on all four sides! I read online that refractory brick manufacturers made specially angled cut bricks for dome structures. Good luck finding such firebricks here in Hawaii.
But oh, where's the door archway that was there before???
Well, the insulating cement (that one with wool in it) never ever cured; it remained plastic enough that I could push my finger into it, all the way thru! As a result, the old doorway arch (with smoke chimney) started to lean about 1/4 inch, which threw things off a lot.
So I dismantled the archway completely. Then I lit a propane burner below the platform to heat up the insulating cement slab from the bottom:
I left the burner on for 24 hours at full flame.
Finally the insulating cement is hard and I thought cured. Then it rained heavily and where the water touched the surface of the "cured" insulating cement, the cement turned plastic again! It seems that this insulating cement is not for wet environments and will disintegrate if subject to same.
Once I get a ceramic insulation blanket on with an outer layer of stucco, there shouldn't be any moisture reaching the insulating cement. I also will redesign the archway to look more like that one I made for the olympic arena a whiles back.
I also lit a fire in the dome to help dry out the refractory cement that I used to cement the dome's firebricks.
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