Stole this photo off Facebook.

Story has it that a station hand was going into town and was told to order three new camp ovens. Measured the circumference instead of the diameter and three months later, three HUGE camp ovens arrived.

Photo taken at The Drovers Camp Camooweal.

Would love to see the rest of it.

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Imagine the work required to keep coals up to that.

Aart

this isnt bad size

http://castironboysblog.wordpress.com/

I saw a couple around the the size of that lid many years ago now - huge!!!

Jeff

Ive heard that story about the confused measurements many times over the years, I always considered it a rumor, maybe its not after all, Thats the first time Ive ever seen positive proof of an oven that big. Can you get any more photos of it or infomation on it ??????

So what WAS the diameter?
Who was the Foundry?
That would be interesting on eBay...............
So would the postage............... ;D

A follow up to this story:

http://www.droverscamp.com.au/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

I believe the station was Alexandria and they were actually that bid to keep the bread up to the large stock camps of the era.

I saw a similar sized oven, two actually in a museam in Mt Isa in the early ninties one was complete and one was a base only and they would have been about 3 1/2 to 4 foot across both the same size.
I remember being just able to reach out and lift the lid just, seems like there might have been someone knocking a few of these gems out, what a treasure
Mook
[smiley=thumbsup.gif]

TBF wrote on Sep 21^st, 2012 at 8:47am:

Imagine the work required to keep coals up to that. Aart

Just thinking about that again.  Maybe not.  Once you got the big bugger hot would take forever to cool down perhaps.

Interesting lid, however I find it difficult to understand why such a large camp oven would be required, even for a sizeable stock camp. For instance, I’m not sure it would be more efficient to cook with, than using a larger number of smaller camp ovens. For example, a camp oven of this size would require two men to safely manipulate it during the cooking process, whereas  one man using a larger number of smaller camp ovens could potentially cook the same amount more reliably and with the labour savings of one person.
There would also be a heightened risk of damaging a pot of this size and weight, particularly during  transportation on rough bush tracks.

TBF wrote on Sep 21^st, 2012 at 8:47am:

Imagine the work required to keep coals up to that. Aart

It would keep Hotshins busy ;D

Ive often wondered about the same thing Stumpy. Im thinking ovens of this size might have been used in big camps on projects that took a while to complete. Camps of a size that employed more than one cook and didn't shift location often.

Derek wrote on Sep 20^th, 2012 at 8:34pm:

Story has it that a station hand was going into town and was told to order three new camp ovens. Measured the circumference instead of the diameter and three months later, three HUGE camp ovens arrived.

Or . . . . . . as I said in the original post, they could have been made by mistake.  :o

Derek wrote on Nov 7^th, 2012 at 7:59pm:

Or . . . . . . as I said in the original post, they could have been made by mistake.

It may have been a mistake Derek, however I find it difficult to believe that a foundry would proceed with the expense of designing and fabricating a ‘one off’ monster camp oven mold, for an order to cast only a few camp ovens, without first checking with the purchaser that they were prepared to pay the horrendously expensive premium for this work.

Might been advertising of their CO business.....was at Mitre 10 this week...they have a 10ft high webber BBQ there...supposably fully operational

Dave

They get bigger.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Imagine the stew you could cook up in that one  ::)

When I was a kid we used to see head hunter cartoons with big cauldrons like that  8-)

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That's amazing!  Imagine lifting the lid on that one though!

Yah never know what ya might find when liftin the lid on a big cookin pot.   ;D ;D ;D

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;D
I see she was made to take her shoes off so as not to damage the seasoning.

Jennifer wrote on Dec 7^th, 2012 at 10:01am:

;D I see she was made to take her shoes off so as not to damage the seasoning.

Love your sense of humour :)

;)  Kept it clean too, for a change ...

Mook wrote on Oct 27^th, 2012 at 9:07pm:

I saw a similar sized oven, two actually in a museam in Mt Isa in the early ninties one was complete and one was a base only and they would have been about 3 1/2 to 4 foot across both the same size.

I reckon this lid on this link might be one of them as well, what do you think??
http://www.aussiecampovenforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1348137253/all