Advice on chopping up a double oven to make a single? And other questions...

[ed_denu]

Originally Posted by spills

I have NO idea how to tell wattage, or if there's even a way to check. Any input?

Rather than rely on manufacturers markings if any, the best way of telling the wattage of your elements is to do an ohms check. Then multiple resistance(ohms) times volts(240) and that gives you power(watts).

[spills]

Granted I havent been dealing with ovens for long, but mounting the elements just on the side like that seems to me that you could have some colder spots in the center. I could be wrong, but that's the first thing I thought when I looked at that oven.

[SCOTTRODS]

Originally Posted by spills

Granted I havent been dealing with ovens for long, but mounting the elements just on the side like that seems to me that you could have some colder spots in the center. I could be wrong, but that's the first thing I thought when I looked at that oven.

Heat rises, You'd have to be sitting the part on the floor of the oven for it to have a hard time coming up to temp. I talked to Ted (on email) and he also told me there's not a "known" high temperature.... Sounds dangerous huh?

The size of the oven you're building is small enough that you could just use the on on bottom, and add one to the back wall if you just want faster heat-up times. Otherwise, I bet just one element would be enough to git 'er hot. Don't put in that second element until you've tried it and you'll see what I mean.

[rbroker]

Wow, Im impressed. That looks way cleaner than my oven. Great job!

I'd put money on it that you won't be able to get the oven temps equal top to bottom, so you'll have to turn it on its side soon. If you put elements on the side your usable area will be next to nothing because you can't get too close to those elements or you get major hot spots.

Thats why I had to use the fire brick.

As for wiring, I just used the same wires that the oven came with. All I had to do was plug them back in, and away we went.

I have two dials. I turn the bottom unit to 475 on the dial, and the upper to about 425. That gets me 400 even. It took a few days of trial and error to dial in the oven. I used some thick metal chunks and put them in the oven all over top to bottom. Then made temp changes and checked them about every 45-1hour. It took a while, but once I found 400 I could then find 375, and 425 etc.. I had to leave my fan on low, because it moved too much air on med, and high and actually kept the temps from rising. Not to mention it blew powder off the parts

keep us posted!

[spills]

Im working on the wiring situation right now, so hopefully Ill have her ready to go by nightfall.

So when you were going through the trial and error of temperature readings, you would put metals in there as if they were being cured and took the temp of that metal? I assumed you could just take the temp of the interior walls for the most part to get an appx. temp range.

Im still debating whether or not I want to flip it over on its side. For one, Id have to mount the element(s) on top of the already existing rack "holders" that would slightly decrease my working area, as well as having to figure out some sort of racking system and a rack that could hold a decent bit of weight over such a long stretch of space without bowing or giving enough to flex and fall out of the rack. Ahh, how I love to over think things!!

[rbroker]

No the walls won't be good enough. Find the thickest metal you can find. This will give better reading that the 18 guage walls. It takes time for those thick pieces to get to temp, and just as long to cool down. A thin peice of metal will actually cool down when you open the door giving you inaccurate readings.

I had six gears found at work, each 1/2" thick steel. I kept track of what the oven dials said vs what the part piece was. And made adjustments from there. I had hot spots in the back corners, at a 40 degree spike in temp from the peice 6 inchs away. Make an adjustment wait an hour and recheck, did it over and over for a weekend or three.

And as I noted, the dials were highly inaccurate.

I think if I had to do it all over again, i wouldn't. LOL way more trouble than its worth. The racking is by far the biggest pain in the ass. I would rather have spent money on a used commerical fridge and converted that to an oven.