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Clay Cob Oven Mosaics

October 9, 2011 @ 18:50 By Gavin Webber 11 Comments

My lovely wife Kim, who is the artist in the family, thought that the clay cob oven would look great finished off with a coat of render and mosaic tiles.

I agreed as I wanted the oven not only to be functional, but to be a work of art as well.  Kind of a focal point for that side of the urban farm.

So today we got to it.  The render came in a 20kg bag, to which I added an iron oxide colour.  I mixed it all up with a mixing attachment connected to the hammer drill to stir it all up dry.  Then I added the water to make a smooth render that I could trowel on to the oven.  This is what is looked like.  The colour is Desert Sand, and it is a lot lighter now that it is drying. Click on any picture to enlarge.

After a light mist with water, I applied the render with a plastering float the best I could, trying to get an even thickness all over.

Left hand side nearly finished,

Then right hand side.  It looked very rough, so I found a big sponge that I used to wash my car with, wet it down and we smoothed the render all over.  It worked a treat.

We really had to work fast, as it was drying out quicker than anticipated.  However I think we did pretty well to get most of the tiles on.

The bottom row represents the ground, out of which are growing flowers.

We put a green edging of cracked glass tiles around the front.

The blue tiles on top represent the sky.  We didn’t complete it as the render just got too hard.  So we have decided to stick the rest on with tile adhesive and then do a similar coloured grout all over to make it all smooth and blend in better.

So during the week, I need to get another bag of render to do the base and slap that on, then fix the mantle at the front with a bit of cement, then we can finish it all off next Sunday.  Standby for more photos next weekend!

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Filed Under: Cob Oven

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About Gavin Webber

Gavin Webber's daily goal is to live a more sustainable lifestyle, in an effort to reduce his family's environmental footprint so we can all make a difference for our children & future generations to come.

Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Comments

  1. kymber says

    October 9, 2011 at 19:10

    Gav – you know darn well that i have printed all of these clay cob oven posts AND put them in plastic sheets, in order to copy them the day that we are ready to build our own! the tiling looks beautiful and i can’t wait to see the finished product!

    kudos to you and kim and thank you so much for all that you share here – you are a real inspiration!

    Reply
  2. dixiebelle says

    October 9, 2011 at 20:21

    Looks great! You guys would make great cake decorators! I can’t wait to see delicious things coming out of it…

    Reply
  3. Sol says

    October 10, 2011 at 05:18

    it looks amazing. Great job!

    Reply
  4. africanaussie says

    October 10, 2011 at 11:36

    Oh it is beautiful – I have clay cob oven envy!

    Reply
  5. Anonymous says

    October 10, 2011 at 12:06

    Your Kim is something. Can’t wait to see the next installment. Your oven just keeps getting cooler (or hotter) as it goes.

    brenda from arkansas

    Reply
  6. Sue says

    October 10, 2011 at 21:57

    WOW!! That is the best looking oven I’ve ever seen. You can come and build and decorate one for me if you like 🙂

    Reply
  7. Jason Dingley says

    October 12, 2011 at 13:01

    That is beautiful. I love it, nice work. I have for many years wanted to put some mosaic in my garden. For me it give a feeling of being natural with its roughness, yet human with its design.

    Reply
  8. Louisa Hill says

    September 24, 2014 at 03:03

    Hi Gavin love your site. We would love to build a cob oven and put mosaics on. Just wondering after all these years how your mosaics are fairing? Do they pop off when the oven is contracting from hot to cold? Also, how well does the glue perform under temperature. Looks wonderful. Green with envy

    Reply
    • Gavin Webber says

      September 24, 2014 at 07:13

      Hi Louisa,

      Thanks for browsing through the site. Glad you are enjoying it. The mosaics are faring well. One or two of the tiles have fallen off the front face of the oven, but all the rest are still stuck on fast. We think that the layer of grout helped to keep them in place.

      Gav

      Reply
      • Louisa says

        September 25, 2014 at 15:56

        Thanks Gavin. Do you think I can get away with no grout?

      • Gavin Webber says

        September 25, 2014 at 20:29

        You can only try. You will just have to press them into the cob harder.

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An Ordinary Australian Man Who Has A Green Epiphany Whilst Watching A Documentary, Gets a Hybrid Car, Plants A Large Organic Vegetable Garden, Goes Totally Solar, Lowers Consumption, Feeds Composts Bins and Worms, Harvests Rainwater, Raises Chickens, Makes Cheese and Soap, and Eats Locally. All In The Effort To Reduce Our Family's Carbon Footprint So We Can Start Making A Difference For Our Children & Future Generations To Come.

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