Hi all,
I just discovered RMHs recently and I'm now chomping at the bit to replace my home's woodstove with one of these. But I have questions! So many questions!
Matt's castable burn chamber seemed like a great way to go, especially since I feel pretty comfortable working with cement / casting (definitely more so than I feel with brickwork!). So I was wondering: is there a reason that the burn chamber and riser are cast separately? Seems like it would be easy enough to do and give a better product because the transition from burn chamber to riser would be entirely seamless...
What I was thinking of doing was using the excellent homemade refractory cement described at Backyard Metal Casting (http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/refractories.html -- 4-5 cu ft. or thereabouts work out to roughly $60-70, which is quite a bargain compared to commercial products) and using sonotubes and plywood to build a form for a one-piece burn chamber + riser. Then throw cob around it and a 55 gallon drum on top of it. Any reason that shouldn't work?