Rebuilding the interior chamber

So, I got all the bad brick out. It was hard around the burner ports but new brick was replaced around those. The chimney got trickier. Some bricks couldn't be taken out because of the weight on them (at least not without dismantling the whole chimney which I was trying to avoid!) So I broke a few in half, pieced in some holes with partial bricks so at least I know nothing will collapse. Not pretty but effective.

 

One brick I had to give up on and work around it so my back wall has a small "wonk" to it. It offends me only because it was perfectly lined up before. 

The bricks around the holes for removing the draw rings and spraying in the soda also don't line up perfectly due to the minor discrepancy in brick size of these new ones compared to the old ones. Sigh... it really does offend my perfectionist nature but I am learning to let it go...sigh. Should be functional.

It's kinda like putting a puzzle together without all the right size pieces but with some creativity it is coming along smoothly. 3/4 of the chamber is done and a huge thunderstorm forced me to quit for the day.