I've had an Ooni Koda pizza oven since the kickstarter, and I've hacked it since I've had it. While it's a really good portable pizza oven, anything can be improved. In my case, I've been tinkering with turntables for the Koda for a while, in order to ensure even pizza cooking. My last turntable effort worked pretty well, but only lasted for almost 2 years. Eventually, the high-temperature epoxy gave way, and the stone separated from the lazy susan.

So, I wanted to start over with a different design. A better design, that didn't rely on epoxy. A design that, as things turned out, would fail the first night I used it. Yeah, don't run out and buy these parts, you don't want to build this. Instead, read through and relish my failure.

I did discover a different, useful tool, though.

So I went to the scrapyard and got a new sheet of stainless as a base and a strip of 3/4" wide steel. In a fatal decision, I bought a 12" lazy susan as my turntable, plus all the screws and everything else. My 13" corderite stone from the prior turntable was salvagable, so I reused it.

The really challenging part of this design was going to be perfectly centering the lazy susan on the stone. With a 13" stone, I only have about 3/16" clearance on either side, so I couldn't afford any wobble. I had to reach back to my 7th grade Geometry class and remember how to find the exact center of a circle using a compass.

Eventually, I got everything perfectly centered and blue-taped together so that I could mark holes for the metal strips, and turn them into retaining tabs to hold the stone.

We drilled them, and fastened them on with tiny stubby bolts. These bolts had taken some doing to find; I was at Eagle Point Hardware for forty minutes searching through the cabinets with one of the very knowledgable women there, and eventually found these stubby metric bolts intended for repairing appliances. But they were the right 5/16" length. I also centered it and attached it to the sheet steel, so that it would be stable and centered in the oven.

I slid it into the oven. Success! It fit perfectly and spun easily. Now, to make pizza!

That night I was making pizza for a party -- 8 pizzas in all. I grabbed my dough and toppings, fired up the Ooni, preheated it for half an hour, and got ready to bake.

My first pizza, a margherita, was perfect. The easy spinning of the turntable let me even out the heat and it had a beautifully spotted crust and no scorching.

But, I had 7 more pizzas to make. And around pizza #4, things started to go downhill. The turntable started sticking, and not just a little; it completely locked up and couldn't be turned. I burned the crust of two pizzas. What was wrong? The oven was 800F and the guests were arriving; there was no pulling it apart to check. I grabbed my old pizza spinners and did things the hard way.

I got through all of the pizzas, and got them ready to serve. Pictured here was my successful hack; I bought two folding cake layer racks to use as multi-pizza racks. These worked really well for stacking six pizzas at once and making sure their crusts didn't get soggy.

Later, I took the turntable apart. What had happened is that with the heat, the 12" lazy susan had warped, which meant that as I spun it, it would bind where the ball bearing track was now too tight. This wasn't fixable, and even if I swapped in a new lazy susan, it would happen again.

In the end, I decided to fork out for a Zifa Pizzatwister, and pay for (and wait for) the shipping from Germany. More blogging once I try it out.

I've messed around with various ways of making pizza on the grill for the last couple of years with unsatisfactory results. So when kickstartered pizza maker Ooni announced the Koda, their new super-simple gas-only portable outdoor pizza oven, I preordered one. Here's my first report on its performance.

First, they're not kidding about the Koda being portable. There's no chimney, the oven's legs fold up, and the whole thing weighs less than the gas tank you use to fuel it. I've ordered a carry-case now and expect to bring this to pizza parties at friends' homes.

There's a cost to that portability, though. First, you have to find a table to put it on; I'm going to build one out of scrap for the backyard. Second, the baking surface is a 12" square, and you really want to make your pizzas a no more than 9"-10" in diameter to keep the crust away from the flame and front edge. You also need a suitably narrow pizza peel, preferably a steel one so it doesn't catch fire.

I preheated the Koda for about 1/2 hour. It did not get up to the reported 950F, but it easily got up to 800F -- possibly because I was using it on a porch where it was 48F out. Anyway, 800F is plenty hot enough for some serious pizza.

So I popped in a "winter margarita", with buffalo mozzarella, pesto, and roasted tomatoes left over from last summer. I'd used my standard pizza dough recipe, which turned out to be a mistake (more about that later).

The pizza cooked fast at that heat. Too fast, in fact; it started to burn along the back edge. And by "burn" I mean "bright yellow flames". I quickly pulled it out, and then started to rotate it to get the rest done. The whole pizza was done in about 3 minutes.

Over the next 5 pizzas I made I learned a bit how to deal with the Koda. First, crank the heat between pies, but then turn it down when inserting the pizza. Second, rotate that pizza as soon as you can, and keep spinning it. If you have thick toppings, it can also help to finish them against the top of the oven. The other pizzas I made included:

• Shaved asparagus and Fontina Val d'Aosta
• Zucchini, roasted tomato and olive
• Buffalo mozzarella and rosemary

Of these, the mozzarella/rosemary was the biggest hit. I baked all 6 pizzas in less than an hour, taking a break between the first and second three.

Through this I continued to have a problem with the back edge burning. Part of this was my fault due to the dough recipe; apparently doughs with sugar or honey in them are a Bad Idea at 800F and tend to burn. However, the Koda also has a pretty serious temperature dropoff between the back of the oven and the front, like 250F difference. This really isn't that surprising considering the Koda's design, but it does mean that pizzaiolos need to keep the pizza spinning, as much as possible.

Fortunately, one thing Ooni has is a friendly, super-pizza-geeky community on Facebook who were all-too-happy to speculate and advise on how I could do better next time. I'll also experiment with a thicker pizza stone and other tweaks.

Overall, though, I am very pleased with my purchase. The Koda makes superior pizza, and is certainly the best pizza oven you can get for $300, as well as the most portable and the simplest to operate. I expect many pizza-making nights this summer, and I'll try naan and kachapuri in it too.

So first, let me get out of the way that there's very much easier ways to convert your Brent pottery wheel to a standing wheel than building an armature out of ABS pipe. In fact, I'd say that this is one of the most labor-intensive ways to make one. I got this design from Don Clarke, who put a basic description and some photos on his website, so I wanted to put full instructions and measurements here in my blog in case anyone is foolish inspired enough to make one.

Here's the advantages of an ABS pipe wheel lift:

• floor footprint the same size as regular wheel
• easy to mop under
• cheap
• sturdy

And here's the disadvantages:

• difficultly of construction
• ABS sawdust
• no way to change height once built
• not possible to be exact about height (up to 1" error)
• no extra space for tools/pedal/etc

Not dissuaded yet? Well, let's start work.

The first step is to determine the ideal height for a standing wheel for you. The wheelhead should hit somewhere around your bellybutton, but that varies a bit by your throwing technique and how tall the items you typically throw are.

The best way to really figure this out is to try out a temporary setup. I used my Artista portable wheel and a table, with boards to raise it. If you have to use your Brent for this, then I suggest a combination of cinderblocks and bricks to test different heights. That wheelhead is 20" from the bottom of the pipe legs on the Brent (at least, it is on my 25-year-old model C), so measure from the floor to the wheelhead and subtract 20" to get the height of the armature you want.

I wanted between 39" and 40", so the rest of my measurements below are based on that height. The rest of these instructions also assume that the measurements of a Brent haven't changed in the last 30 years, which I don't think they have, but you really want to double-check.

Once you've done that, it's time to go shopping! Here's what you'll need:

• 10-ft of 2" ABS plastic sewer pipe
• 8 x 2" "sanitary" t-joints
• 3 x 2-to-3" ABS expansion joints
• 1 can of ABS or all-pipe "glue"
• Quality 30" ruler or T-square
• Small level
• Miter saw with fine-tooth (80 to 160) blade, preferably electric cutoff type
• 1-2 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves
• Hearing, hand, and eye protection and a large apron or similar

Some tips based on my own hard experience: first, buy extra of most things. I got 20ft of pipe and 2 extra t-joints and it still wasn't enough to make up for my screw-ups in cutting and gluing, and I had to go back to the hardware store. Second, do this during good weather where you can do your sawing and gluing outside. That ABS "sawdust" gets everywhere and will totally ruin any clay it gets into if you make the mistake of cutting it in your studio. Third, get a miter saw instead of doing this with a table saw like I did, you'll have a much easier time with cutting the pipe.

Once you have all the parts and equipment, you'll want to flip your wheel upside down and level it using blocks. You need to do this because you will have to do final assembly of the armature on the legs of the wheel, or there's no way you'll get the fit exactly right, and the fit needs to be precise or the legs of the Brent won't go in and you'll have to throw the whole thing out and start over.

So, next we need to cut all the pieces for each "leg", which consists of an expansion joint as a foot, a 3" piece of pipe, a t-joint, a longer piece of pipe, and another t-joint. That longer piece of pipe is where you adjust the height of this. For my target 39.5", I used a 7.25" long pipe, so lengthen or shorten yours depending on whether you want to be taller or shorter.

Now, you'll notice a difficulty with sanitary T-joints. They aren't symmetrical. Since they're designed for sewer output, the bottom of the T curves, and is closer to one side than the other. This means that you have to pay close attention to the orientation of the T-joint, and this is also where your main gluing screw-ups will come in.

Having cut all those pieces, we need to glue them. Put on the nitrile gloves. While ABS glue is non-toxic, it "melts" the plastic and that black plastic will stick to your hands and require pumice to scrub off. You use the applicator in the can to rub the glue on both sides of the join and then push the pieces together. Here's the other challenge: ABS glue sets immediately, so you need to push the pieces into the right position the first time. And make sure that those t-joints face precisely the same direction.

Now, the three legs are going to be joined by two "T" shapes for stability. The short side of each "T" has a sanitary T-joint in the middle, but since those joints are off-center, you'll need to glue them with different length pipes on each side, one 4" and the other 5.25". Once this is set, you'll glue in the last, 28 5/8" long pieces for the long crossbar.

Now comes the really hard part. You're going to need to put all three legs on the legs of the wheel, and then insert the T stabilizers, with glue, between them. One thing that makes this super-tricky is that the tops of the legs fit very tightly onto the legs of the Brent, tightly enough that you generally need to hammer them on. If you do it right, you'll have this:

So, some steps:

1. Remove any plastic feet from the wheel legs.
2. Clean the bottom of the wheel legs, even sand them if they are rusty or corroded.
3. Press each plastic leg assembly onto the 3 legs, and get it into position, but don't shove or hammer it down.
4. Glue the long part of both Ts into the front leg, and then quickly before they set ...
5. Lean the two back legs, insert the crossbars with glue, and push them back together, and then quickly ...
6. Using a rubber mallet and some scrap wood, hammer all three legs into place before the glue is fully set, and
7. Check that the feet are level using your level and bash them around with the mallet until they are.

As you can imagine, the above will go better with an assistant, since the last four steps have to be done before the glue sets, meaning in about 2 minutes total. Now, let that assembly dry and set for at least 12 hours before you flip it over, something which definitely requires an assistant, as you don't really want to put a lot of sideways pressure on the legs while flipping.

Now, build yourself a backrest, plug the wheel in, and you're ready to throw!