Sho Me Coatings Custom Oven

[Livinincolor]

Good morning everyone!
First, I would like to thank Caswell for supporting this forum! We wouldn't be where we are in PC'ing without you!!!!
Second, I would like to introduce ourselves as we have yet to do so. We just kind of jumped right in and started posting.
Mike and Johnny both live in Humble, TX, a suburb of Houston. Our first love is custom V-Twin motorcycles and we plan on building our own in the near future. We have a need for good PC company in Houston and it goes along with custom work, so we jumped in with both feet.
We started with a Caswell gun and home oven. PC'ing parts for locals and business started to grow. Now we need a larger oven. Rear, read, read and then read some more. Johnny calls me anal, but I always do a lot of research on anything I start that I am not totally familiar with. Caswell's oven forum and all your pics and quips were a great help.
This oven is 32"x32" by 6' tall.
Built on an old display base from a drug store. Very heavy and stable, it was a great starting place. $465.00 worth of 22 gauge, cross hatched galv sheet later, we have all the pieces. It is framed with steel studs and lined with mineral wool insulation.
If we had it to do over again, I would have started with a welded frame, as our door makes the whole thing tweak a bit (the door sags) when the door is opened. No big deal, but it annoys Johnny! LOL
Riveted and screwed together. Actually, came out very nice for a couple of amateurs.
Door seal and hi temp caulk came from McMaster Carr and I highly reccomend them.
Dig temp controll, thermocouple, contactor all came from the guy in Canada off of ebay. Rude, not real knowledgable about the product and not good at English language, but if you need these items, I HIGHLY reccomend this set up. It's cheap and everything is there. I just had to spend some time to figure out the connections and whatnot.
I put the blower in the door to ease the installation of the duct. Cut a hole in the door skin and bent the cut pieces to aim the air where I wanted it to go.
We have no gas here at the shop so we had to do electric. (Ican hardly wait to see the elect. bill). As for the elements, there are 2 Jenn Air double elements and a single element that goes around each of them. Jenn elements are 5000 w total each and the singles are 3000w each, I built these into recess's so as not to be hit by parts. I bought all these elements from ebay for under 50.00 total (you just have to search, watch and wait). I plan on experimenting by disconnecting one or two here and there to see if I can achieve temp without all that juice flowing.
Takes 12 minutes to achieve 375. It has been test fired several times to do burn off and check temps.
Total cost of the oven build is about $700.00.
The only thing I cannot drag myself to do is install a vent for any fumes it may generate during the cure process. I will do it, but I just hate to vent the heat!
Still have a couple of very minor things to do. Wires need to be placed or run in conduit, the duct from the fan needs insulating and I forgot to insulate the underside.
Pics can be seen here
http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pow...browse/a4aa?c=
I would have posted pics here, but every time I try, the server rejects them as too big.
All in all, it has been a great experience and now we are ready to accept larger parts. I suppose this will lead to an even bigger oven for even larger parts.....Back to work!
Post your questions and I will answer what I can.
Mike & Johnny
Sho Me Coatings

[Crimson]

I would love to see pic's of your oven but I cannot remember my yahoo account user name and password for the life of me. You could use this free host
http://www.imageshack.us/

Mike

[sdold]

can you resizes a few and post them here?

[Banditperformance]

Looks good. Can I ask, any special reason why you mounted the element up high in the oven? One(me basically lol) would think that mounted low and use the natural rising of the heat to help even out oven temp? Or does it not matter that much?

[Livinincolor]

Actually Bandit, there are 2 sets of elemnts, 1 set high, 1 set low!
sdold, I tried, but I can't seem to get them to post here. Always seems to be too big!
Crimson, looks like a nice place to post pics!!! I am working on it, give me an hour to get it together.
Mike

[Livinincolor]

Ok, I hope this is easier to see. I like this pic site. MAy have to use it more often!!!!
http://img150.imageshack.us/slidesho...3387498v8.smil

[Livinincolor]

Or try this one!
http://www.imageshack.us/user/Sho_Me_Coatings

[Banditperformance]

Nice fades :lol

[Crimson]

oven looks really good. I'm sure I will have a ton of questions for you when I finally get around to building myself a large oven.

[termite11]

Oven turned out great. Nice fan, I love mine. Found new industrial elements for mine. I run three 56oo watt elements.