Modiified kitchen oven for Shop powder coating, shop use, NON FOOD.

[Dawai]

I cut the back off a old under counter kitchen oven, too sheet metal and extended the back so I would have 24 inches inside. My main objective was to do home built tools with a durable finish, and "valve covers" for my hot rods. Them Chevy valve covers were just about four inches longer than the oven and really frustrated me. Taking a alternator apart, coating it, just a few jobs and I am paid up on oven time and cost.

After extending the rear of the oven, TO reinsulate, I used Cer-wool fiber, and  recently modified it even more, I cut a 12 1/2" hole in the top to set a pressure cooker pot, and attachments for a "real hot air bender". (to come) I then took some light gauge metal left over from a duct install in a buddies mobile home.

(have to get a current picture)

Heat currently is still controlled by the "remote bulb" thermostat most kitchen ovens have, it keeps the temp in a range of 2 degrees or so of setpoint.  THE powders I am using, I heat the parts to 400 degrees, pull them out hot, hit them with the powder, it flows out becoming shiny, then I bake it to set the powder to a "hard state" for the normal 10 minutes set time.  You can "burn it like cookies" if you over cook it, but if you do not bake it ten minutes to set, it will never achieve the hardness you desire and longevity in use.

For what this oven cost, time to modify, it has paid for itself over and over.. Only takes 28 amps of 220 volts to operate the oven. (normal house range power is a 50 amp service) BUT since this is just a Built in oven, It does not have all that.

My current obsession is with antique Chevy valve covers, I have 4 sets on my bathroom wall Aluminum holes welded up and powdercoated up. (you put a bit of copper under the breather-drilled hole-crack and a klutz welder like me can weld them up) Horrible is they started making them antique script edelbrock valve covers once again..  Well horrible for me, I don't have the only "pretty set anymore"

[Dawai]

Some more pictures of the oven transformation, it is going through changes again.

THE hole in the top, that top element is controlled by the PID I used on my 15 gallon beer brewer, I will form a top hat like cover to allow me to blow into the oven and extract hot air. THE lower element is still controlled by the remote bulb (typical oven control)

It has just been moved to my basement here, not even set up on a table or legs fabricated for it yet. Still more to do to make it do the tricks I want. Forming bending pvc pipe into shapes, and vacuum forming (using a large industrial vacuum cleaner)

[Brass_Machine]

Hi David,

Like what you did with the oven. I have a standard range in the garage that is going to get modified a little. Very similar to what you did. I just have to get the time.

Where do you get your powders from? What gun is that? Looks kinda like the craftsman gun that doesn't need a compressor? I have an el cheapo gun... Has paid for itself many times over again, but I am going to get a new one.

Eric

[Dawai]

Hi.

    THIS oven, THE hole cut out is for mostly doing vacuum forming.. if you intend to do small parts it is really un needed. I am planning on doing some plastic 55 gallon barrels as "raised" garden beds. Pulling bumps around it and using that as a planter, you can get 48 plants in the perimeter of a barrel. (see youtube) but the way they make them, not for me, heating each bump and forming it.. I'd be there for days doing brainless monkey work.  MY wife and I talked, now the kitchen oven is back out of the basement and in the shop once again.. It makes stinky house, the pc is actually a irritant to the throat and lungs as it heats off. (we don't want to piss the cook off)

   THE pc gun I have, a small wall transformer powered deal like a battery operated drill, I call a "puffer gun" with a fan in it, it does not require air. THE tiny ones I used from eastwood I'd blow the cup off by forgetting to cut my air back. I swapped a buddy with a "pro" powder coating shop for it. No clue where he got it or how much it cost. I wired the 18 foot x 12 foot oven of his, then went back and designed the controls and wired the smaller one he really needed.  THE real gun he has has a scale on it, you sit the box of powder on it and shoot right out of the box, it tells you how much you used, it blows a real nice finish.

   Mostly I use his "OLD" powder he gets in huge boxes. it maybe clumping, balling from moisture.. most the jobs I do have lumps on them. TO DO work to sell to people you must have a better finish than I attain here.. Mostly I replace Rustoleum spray paint with powder coating. That is why I mentioned how you must bake it till it "turns" and gets really hard.

  Did I mention how "cheap I am"?? I love the "things I grew up with".. (the man's bathroom)