Is it this easy, or am I missing something?

[L98-Z]

I used a standard househould electric oven. A lady across town said if i came and picked it up, it was free. You can find free or cheap ovens, just got to hunt around a little bit.

[chromo]

Glad to see someone else step in about the electric oven.

Osha is fine for business or comercail, but for the home hobbyists they really have no say! I think that O stand for Occupational, not hobby!

If you use High powered tools at work and are so dumb as to not wear saftey glasses they can fine your emplorer big time. Especaily if you get hurt. I know they fined a curtain company once because the employees would not wear their safety glasses at the sewing machines! Osha came in a few times and found employess without glasses, warned them then gave a fine finally. You think they can really march into your home and give you or your wife a fine for not wearing saftey glasses while using the singer in the den? Same machine!

If you are in your home doing the same thing as at work, without saftey glasses and they show up, you can kick them out for trespassing!! Even if you put out your eye with a broken drill bit! It's your right to be stupid at home and OSHA has no say in that! Although dumping toxic waste is a different thing!

There is a major difference between a home hobby and comercail business. I beleave in general we're discusing primarily home hobby or private shop.

A professional paint shop is required to have all types of vents and filters to pervent air polution in many parts of the country. But yet you can still go to Wallmart or anywhere else and buy canned spray paint, spray it in the open air in your yard! Go paint the metal lawn furniture! Do some touch up on the car!
The same paint, but not the same laws!

It may vary by state or comunity. For instance here I can have as many non-registerd cars in my yard as I want (currently over 10) and I have 5 registerd and insured to drive besides those. Just 45 miles away is a little town your not aloughed to have more than two cars parked outside your home, even if you drive them! ANY more than 2 and they have to be garaged or behind a privacy fence or something.

There are even some comunities you cannot own a clunker and park it in front of your own house in your driveway! Even if it is your only car and you drive it every day! Although it's ok if it's a brand new car! That's what gated comunties and home owner assosiations are for, to tell you what you can or cannot do with your own property! Also why I won't ever live in one! It really depends on where you live.

SO if you do have wierd laws where you live then it's your problem to know them and obey them. But once again we're talking USA or even entire world here on the net, not just LA, Reno, or Vegas.

Back to the oven though,

Any electric device not properly connected can make sparks! Properly connected electric heating elements DO NOT spark! If you do get any sparks you did somthing wrong, like slopped something onto it! Same for smoke, once used a heating element no-longer smokes, unless you spill something onto it. Often a new one will smoke because of the oils on it from manutactoring, but once that burns off it never will smoke again on it's own.

As for dust, you should not have dust in your oven in the first place! If you have a lot of dust in there I think you did something wrong?
You spray powder onto the part elsewhere, then put the part in the oven. The coating should be stuck to the part kinda like a magnet sticks to a frig.
If you slam the door hard the magnet pops off, if you drop the part the powder will probably pop off
But your not really supposed to be doing that

I'm not an expert on the gas produced, but I am pretty sure it is less flamable or explosive than propane or menthane. Both of which I play with some. Although I would not suggest trying my theory, I would geuss that there is not enough of it produced to blow up your house anyway. Maybe blow open the oven door at most and the part might ignite and burn like plastic for a while, But I would be geussing that's about it. Of course I am talking about the average size home electric stove oven with part in it. Not 900 square foot comercail oven full of parts!

Someday I should test that theory just to see
Easy enough for me to connect a spark plug inside an oven and make it spark, and I have plenty of open space that would be safe to do it in.
Right now I don't have the time or an extra oven to trash, but when I get both I think I will test it. My theory is the fumes will be simailir to melted plastics, will burn but not a dramatic explosion.
I melt plastics alot and do some molding, stinky toxic fumes, flamable but never had an explosion. I use a homemade sealed melter which contains the fumes. Once again, simply a heater element, thermostat, type unit.

Has anyone experienced a fire or explosion with powder coat fumes? If so, how was it? Little poof. or big boom??

Chromo

[mcaswell]

The explosion threat isn't from gas, it's from all the small particles of dust in the air, rubbing together and creating large amounts of friction. This is the same phenomenon your hear about in grain elevator explosions, where the dust creates an explosive atmosphere.

http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/scien...iber/grain.htm

[chromo]

Yea, I'm familar with that somewhat.

Sort of like the explosions in the old time coal mines, maybe even in modern ones too at times.

Lots of dust, spark, boom! Many substances like that. Explosions vary by product a great deal.

To a mild extent, coffeee creamer! Used to use it as a flash powder. Tear open a restaruant type packet, toss a bit in the air over a flame, and presto, flash! Gets too sticky though.

I think common baking flour does the same thing. If you have a fire burning and dump the bag into it creating alot of dust, large flash or small explosion. Got the hair burned off my arm once that way. Had a buggy bag of flour, didn't think about the dust but wanted to kill the wevals in the bag! Dumped it into a burn barrel and POOF!

However, you should not have much dust in your oven right! No fans blowing it off the part, just convection heat. Hot air gradually rising, no sudden drafts or heavy winds

By the time you carry the part across the shop and place it in the oven, any really loose dust should be gone. The powder still on the part sortof magnetically bonded to it till baked.

Or does it have a tendency to somewhat disolve into very fine particals while baking and mix with the air, sort of like disolving salt into water?

The real area of most concern for an explosion would be more of the spray booth than an electric oven wouldn't it?

WHile we are discussing this, since I don't know anyone personally that blew themselfs up yet

Always saftey first, but as a curiousity type question. How much spark is required to ignite the dust normally? I mean I get enough static in the air here that I look like a sparkplug sometimes when I touch my metal wood burner! I really mean I shoot a spark like a sparkplug, and I have seen it jump at least an 8th to 4th inch! Sort like touching my electric fence!
Is that enough to go boom, or does it take something more like an arc welder spark or open flame?


Chromo

[chromo]

Interesting link you posted. Went to check it out after posting last message, thought it might have powdercoat info

"Use cornstarch, flour, imitation coffee creamer, hot chocolate mixture, or bisquick. "

Hadn't thought about cornstarch or hot chocolate
Bisquick is mostly flour I think anyway.

Nice experiment.

Chromo

[Tim Wiltse]

Chromo,

I have been reading through these messages and I too thought you sort of took 360's head off at first. But I agree $400 for an oven when you can get a full size one at Lowes or Home Depot for so much less is crazy, and they all do the same thing!
I have a small anodizing and machine shop. My wife thinks I'm crazy "playing" with acid and my lathe. Like you said I could be sitting on my butt watching the tube or I could be outside doing something cool.
Any dude who makes their own gas is all right in my book.

Take care,
Tim

[rivermasternc]

The last 2 ovens I bought were US$122,000 and US$125,160 installed. Don't look at the price, look at the ROI!

-Scott

[Hemi-T]

It sounds like you have a pretty large scale powder coating business, so $125,000+ is indeed considered a business investment. I'm sure your ovens also have a very high capacity, and a very long life expectancy to ensure your ROI. For most hobbyists, a normal consumer electric oven works OK. I picked one up off the curb for free, and it works perfectly for the small parts I work with. I think Chromo was just trying to make a point about the difference between a $400 commercial powder coating oven, and a used, pick-up-off-the-curb-for-free consumer model that works well for most hobby needs. They both are very close to the same size, and there is a very large price difference between them (by hobbyist standards). I have to plead ignorance when it comes to Las Vegas electrical conditions. My house (suburban Chicago) has 220v at the box, and I paid an electrician $500 to run a secondary box with (3) 120v and (1) 220v circuits out to my garage. Clean, simple, safe, and legal. It runs my air compressor, welder, and oven (although not at the same time). I too, was unaware that some homes do not have 220v available in them. In our area, 220v 3 phase is not available in a residence, but every home has 220v single phase.

Hemi-T

[adambond]

(IN REFERENCE TO ALL THE 220 SMALL 4OO$ OVEN TALK)
I GOT A 1993 WHIRLPOOL ELECTRIC STOVE IN PERFECT PERFECT WORKING ORDER FOR DONATING 50$ AT A LOCAL CHURCH YARDSALE.
BUT CHROMO'S RIGHT IF YOU ALREADY HAVE 220 COMPRESSOR YOUR ALMOST THERE. HERES WHAT I DID. PLAINLY SPEAKING THERE IS A BLACK TERMINAL WHITE TERMINAL AND RED TERMINAL ON THE BACK OF MY OVEN. I USED A 110 HEAVY DUTY CORD STRIPPED THE SOLID BLACK WIRE AND PUT IT ON THE BLACK TERMINAL AND STRIPPED THE BLACK WITH WHITE STRIPE WIRE AND PUT IT ON THE RED TERMINAL. NOW THE OVEN WORKS PERFECTLY ON 110. AND IF I WANTED TO USE THE OVEN LIGHT AND TIMER/BUZZER I JUST HAVE TO PUT A JUMPER FROM THE SOLID BLACK TO THE WHITE TERMINAL. (BUT IM NOT GOING TO PUSH MY LUCK.)
WELL THERE YOU HAVE IT. ITS NOT STUPID ASS NUCLEAR FUSION. ITS POWDER COATING. JUST BAKE IT.
ADAM (just trying to get a higher rating) BOND

P.S. the oven has worked for about a year, heats up to 400 in about 5 min. and i havent burnt my garage down.