Oven using metal studs and aluminum

[sdold]

I thought I'd post a couple of pics of the oven I'm building, loosely based on the one Jim (Viper56) built. This one's going to be covered in aluminum sheet, and the interior panels are insulated from the rest of the oven with fiberglass tape to allow for expansion and hopefully increase efficiency. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but here are the pics!

By the way thanks to the guys who answered my questions about the ramp-up time. I was going to post these in that thread, but figured this one was more appropriate.

[pickleboy]

just something to keep in mind bro.my big oven is skinned inside with thin alum. panels and over the time that the las owner and myself have used it the alum panels will tend to gro and warp i will try to shoot pics this afternoon for you. not that it it a bad idea, just that you may need more studs to anchor to to keep the inner wals flat. by the way it looks great so far.

[sdold]

Thanks for the heads up, I hope that doesn't happen. If it does, it will be pretty easy to drill the rivets out and put in something else, since nothing overlaps the interior panels. Yeah, I'd like to see a pic or two if you get a chance.

Maybe I'd better add a couple of studs as stiffeners.

[Popeye]

Looks good!
Not sure about the aluminum on the inside though...

[sdold]

It's an advanced, cutting-edge design. At least I'm not building it out of wood or heating it with a propane heater

[Popeye]

I hear that!

[Popeye]

You might want to consider using button head rivets to attach the liner panels. You could drill .25" holes in the liner and .125" in the studs, that would give it some breathing room to expand and contract without warping as much...
AND, if you ceramic coated the liner panels it would reflect the heat instead of sucking it up....
Just a couple suggestions, so don't take it personal

[sdold]

How do you drive Button Head rivets? Interesting idea about the Ceramic coating.

The heating elements arrived today. I think I'll mount them to the bottom before the side sheets are put on. Pics to follow. McMaster Carr has a great selection of elements. I'm starting with two 1500 watt bendable elements.

[sswee]

Button head rivets are installed with a standard rivet gun. They just have a button head as opposed to a countersunk rivet. Most speed shops carry the large button heads for panel replacement on race cars. SS

[sdold]

I heated up a side panel today with the kerosene heater. First, I had no idea that these things put out so much water vapor. It was impressive to see it condense on the aluminum panels.

After I heated the panel quite a bit, it bowed in the center due to expansion. I think some of you predicted that.

Popeye: I took your advice and drilled out the side and bottom panels, drilled oversized holes in the panels and used steel pulled-rivets with big heads (about 1/2 inch diameter). Luckily I have a pneumatic gun for Cherry rivets, these things were hard to pull with the hand tool but the Cherry gun works great.

Bottom line: The combination of large hole, large rivet head area and the fiberglass tape underneath made a perfect seal, but still allow movement to take up the expansion.

Thanks for the help, guys. Tomorrow I install the heating elements.

Steve