tractorshaft
member
Having seen several designs on-line and not really liking any of them I came up with this;
Parts:
1 4x8 sheet of "Durarock" cement board, tile underlayment, left over from my bathroom remodel - free
1 Toaster oven from the "Goodwill" store - $2.00
1 roll foil tape - $6.00
1 roll foil duct insulation - $15.00
Misc. pieces of "Pink Fiberglass" insulation.
I started by building a simple box from the Durarock, it nasty dusty stuff to cut but can be done like sheetrock if you have a sharp razor knife and some tenacity. I reccomend the former method unless you can cut it outside with a skilsaw. Build the box "Sealed", that way when you cut the door "Piece" out of it, regardless of how "Square" you built it, the door will fit perfectly. I used "Gorilla Glue" remember to moisten the places you use it for a proper cure and some pre-drilled #6 1" screws.
Build the box, cut out "Door", but secure "Door" with some hinges before cutting it completely "Off" of your rectangular "box", this way you wont have to fight keeping it alinged to secure the hinges.
I removed the "Guts" of the toaster oven, salvaging the temp control resistor and the "Elements". I added a "Oven" light and a 120V computer type fan I had laying around for some ventilation.
Once you have the door hinged go ahead and "Wire" everything up, the insulation will protect and cover it. I put a piece of the foil tape over the wiring to keep it in control until I had the box "Wrapped". The Pink Owens Corning insulation seems to be pretty high temp stuff, I pulled a wad off and hit it with a propane torch, it had ZERO effect on it, good enough for me! Using some thin wire I secured the pink insulation on the "Box" and then covered that with the "Duct Insulation" I got at Home Depot. I secured this over the pink stuff with Foil tape.
I am very happy with the results! It takes 8 minutes to go from 42 deg (Garage temp without heater on) to 350 deg. with vent fan running! I dont have a "Thermostat" , I just dialed down the temp a tiny little bit at a time until the desired "on" temp (350 deg.) was achieved. I added the little "Control Box" and switches for Fan, Light , element on/off for the fun of it, you could do it simpler if you desired and just plug it in/out for an on/off.
Ah, they say a picture is worth a few words so here ya go! I cant wait to bake a gun in it! Ha Ha! Actually I am repainting my metal lathe so I will do a few non-gun parts in Gun-Kote for durability. I put two thermometers in it, one at the top of the box, the other at the bottom. the bottom one is useless and I plan on moving it up towards the middle, its shown on the bottom of the photos and the probe for the "LCD" thermometer is up towards the top of the unit.
You can see that I used some aluminum angle iron to "Stand off" the toaster oven elements. The wiring is easy, dont let the toaster oven confuse you. On a three wire power cord, black, white and green , one side of the elements goes to the black wire with the manual heat control in line with it, the white wire goes right to the white wire. (This is without the on/off switch), totally disregard the green one, its an extra to keep the refrigerator from shocking you when it wont automatically defrost...Wink Wink
I wont to into a lesson on basic wiring here, that is elsewhere on the web. The bottom line is , you can make a decent little paint curing oven for cheap , relatively, scroungable materials you have laying around. you dont need a thermostat if you dont mind a few minutes of "tinkering" with the temp control resistor/dial. Just watch your thermometer and dial it in to your desired temp. I would guess that this thing would easily go over 425 degrees if I needed that. I had some leftover flashing I lined the inside of the oven with but you could also paint it with some spray bomb "Muffler Paint" if you had it. I just did not like the chalky, dusty nature of the bare durarock. I will be adding some removable shelves for small parts and there is a "hook" in the top for hanging a full barreled action. The interior length is 36" is 10"x10" square inside. You could also dispense with the "Oven" bulb setup, I was originally going to heat it with either 2-3 heat lamps or a "heat gun" and changed up to the toaster oven elements. A couple of electric "Charcoal" starters would be easy to setup in this box if you couldent come up with a cheap toaster oven. The "Goodwill" store had 3-4 nice ones , cheap!
Enjoy!
Jerry
Parts:
1 4x8 sheet of "Durarock" cement board, tile underlayment, left over from my bathroom remodel - free
1 Toaster oven from the "Goodwill" store - $2.00
1 roll foil tape - $6.00
1 roll foil duct insulation - $15.00
Misc. pieces of "Pink Fiberglass" insulation.
I started by building a simple box from the Durarock, it nasty dusty stuff to cut but can be done like sheetrock if you have a sharp razor knife and some tenacity. I reccomend the former method unless you can cut it outside with a skilsaw. Build the box "Sealed", that way when you cut the door "Piece" out of it, regardless of how "Square" you built it, the door will fit perfectly. I used "Gorilla Glue" remember to moisten the places you use it for a proper cure and some pre-drilled #6 1" screws.
Build the box, cut out "Door", but secure "Door" with some hinges before cutting it completely "Off" of your rectangular "box", this way you wont have to fight keeping it alinged to secure the hinges.
I removed the "Guts" of the toaster oven, salvaging the temp control resistor and the "Elements". I added a "Oven" light and a 120V computer type fan I had laying around for some ventilation.
Once you have the door hinged go ahead and "Wire" everything up, the insulation will protect and cover it. I put a piece of the foil tape over the wiring to keep it in control until I had the box "Wrapped". The Pink Owens Corning insulation seems to be pretty high temp stuff, I pulled a wad off and hit it with a propane torch, it had ZERO effect on it, good enough for me! Using some thin wire I secured the pink insulation on the "Box" and then covered that with the "Duct Insulation" I got at Home Depot. I secured this over the pink stuff with Foil tape.
I am very happy with the results! It takes 8 minutes to go from 42 deg (Garage temp without heater on) to 350 deg. with vent fan running! I dont have a "Thermostat" , I just dialed down the temp a tiny little bit at a time until the desired "on" temp (350 deg.) was achieved. I added the little "Control Box" and switches for Fan, Light , element on/off for the fun of it, you could do it simpler if you desired and just plug it in/out for an on/off.
Ah, they say a picture is worth a few words so here ya go! I cant wait to bake a gun in it! Ha Ha! Actually I am repainting my metal lathe so I will do a few non-gun parts in Gun-Kote for durability. I put two thermometers in it, one at the top of the box, the other at the bottom. the bottom one is useless and I plan on moving it up towards the middle, its shown on the bottom of the photos and the probe for the "LCD" thermometer is up towards the top of the unit.
You can see that I used some aluminum angle iron to "Stand off" the toaster oven elements. The wiring is easy, dont let the toaster oven confuse you. On a three wire power cord, black, white and green , one side of the elements goes to the black wire with the manual heat control in line with it, the white wire goes right to the white wire. (This is without the on/off switch), totally disregard the green one, its an extra to keep the refrigerator from shocking you when it wont automatically defrost...Wink Wink
I wont to into a lesson on basic wiring here, that is elsewhere on the web. The bottom line is , you can make a decent little paint curing oven for cheap , relatively, scroungable materials you have laying around. you dont need a thermostat if you dont mind a few minutes of "tinkering" with the temp control resistor/dial. Just watch your thermometer and dial it in to your desired temp. I would guess that this thing would easily go over 425 degrees if I needed that. I had some leftover flashing I lined the inside of the oven with but you could also paint it with some spray bomb "Muffler Paint" if you had it. I just did not like the chalky, dusty nature of the bare durarock. I will be adding some removable shelves for small parts and there is a "hook" in the top for hanging a full barreled action. The interior length is 36" is 10"x10" square inside. You could also dispense with the "Oven" bulb setup, I was originally going to heat it with either 2-3 heat lamps or a "heat gun" and changed up to the toaster oven elements. A couple of electric "Charcoal" starters would be easy to setup in this box if you couldent come up with a cheap toaster oven. The "Goodwill" store had 3-4 nice ones , cheap!
Enjoy!
Jerry
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