Movable Oven Wall

[bsmith]

For larger size walk-in ovens, say 8x8x12, how feasible is it to create a movable back wall so that the oven size can be reduced when curing smaller items? I have not seen any commercial ovens online that offer that feature. I can well imagine that heating elements can be located and staged such that the back wall could be moved in increments of say 3' towards the front door opening as needed, but I am wondering how well the movable wall would need to seal with the floor, roof, and two side walls to work efficiently. It seems you would need some way to move the wall easily with small gaps at the sealing surfaces, yet be able to expand the wall slightly once in the desired position to create a nice tight seal. Anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish this?

[jrow]

bsmith,

I would think the easiest thing to do would be to put a horizontal shelf at some point to make your oven smaller. This would require another complete set of electrical components less the heating elements.

John

[bsmith]

John, a shelf cannot deal with shortening the long dimension of an 8'x8'x12' oven. It would be nice to have an 8'x8' wall that could be shifted from the back length of 12' in say 3' increments towards the front door. Heating elements would be recessed in the oven walls and spaced on 3' intervals. The controls would able to activate just the elements needed. In this way, one large oven could economically serve many different project sizes.

[chromeitout]

It may be easier to make a 2 piece wall (top/bottom or side/side) so that you can get it into position easier and use large tadpole seals around it. You could maybe use slide locks like on house door with holes at each 3' increment to hold it in place. Just an idea.

[bsmith]

chromeit, yes, some way to make the back wall more manageable, split or accordion would be nice. You mention large "tadpole" seals. What are those and can you give a web site on where to buy them?

[chromeitout]

http://www.mcmaster.com/ Search tadpole seals on main page. The fiberglass ones are good up to 1000 deg. I plan to use them to seal my removable wall.

[bsmith]

chromeit, thanks for the idea and source on tadpole seals. They look perfect for taking up the slop that a movable wall would need at all its sealing surfaces. In my 8' movable wall design I am thinking that a vertical continuous hinge splitting the wall mid way could work ok and make positioning the wall more manageable.

[chromeitout]

Sounds like a plan!