Thread: New oven

I decided to buy a heat treatment oven. Currently I do my HT in a fire using an iron pipe. That works well for hardening razors, but I am limited in capacity to anneal things, since I can only fit a couple of pipes in the fire to let them cool off when the fire dies down after a forging session. Additionally, heating larger kitchen knives is an issue because my fire isn't long enough.

This was pretty spendy, but a bladesmith friend told me to buy the big one just because you always regret not doing it . This beast is 40 cm cubed inside, can reach 1300 Celsius, and weighs a 125 kilo. It is a beast. One of the reasons I picked this one is that I could run it off a standard 240 Volt outlet (dedicated circuit of course) instead or requiring 3 phase 400 volt. My house is connected to 3 phase, but making a separate circuit would cost time and money.

My original plan involved moving it into the basement somehow. However, after looking at the size and experiencing the weight firsthand, I am starting to think that plan B is looking more and more attractive. That would entail me clearing out space in the garage (where it is now) after an approval from the CEO, so that it can stay where it is. I could make a steel frame with wheels so that I could roll it away from the wall when I want to use it. It needs a foot clearance on all sides.

Or I need to ask my brother what his plan A was to get it in the basement without doing things that would be worthy of a youtube fail video and a honorable mention in 'science of stupid'

Congratulations on the new oven! So now your output of blades will increase, right?

now your getting all fancy Bruno
nice upgrade with some definite & known control

I don't know yet. A big reason was to make sure that if the winter keeps me from forging regularly i have the means to anneal the blanks i make in one go. And to give me ht options when the weather is bad.

Next year i probably need to work my day job fulltime again and my goal is to make the same amount of razors i did this year at least. This oven is going to play an important rloe in that

I will still do hardening the old fashioned way when i can because it is quick and i use tje fire for forging. I'll probably use it most for annealing and bad weather ht

Whoa, you could like cook brownies in half a second.

That thing is a beast! I too have though about an electric fire, seems like other things get in the way of dishing out that kind of cash. There is just something about fire that really puts a soul into the steel...

Originally Posted by shooter74743

That thing is a beast! I too have though about an electric fire, seems like other things get in the way of dishing out that kind of cash. There is just something about fire that really puts a soul into the steel...

I know what you mean. I plan to use charcoal fire when I can, because of that and because it is just so convenient. But for annealing and tempering alone it is awesome. And it would be silly to end the year with a profit because then the taxman walks away with most of it. Between this oven and the other thing I talked about, I'm pretty sure I'll end the year without profit

Plus if my wife ever needs to bake a cake at 1300 Celsius, I'm da man!

Originally Posted by Bruno

...snip...
Plus if my wife ever needs to bake a cake at 1300 Celsius, I'm da man!

Brownies for sure!!
Nice buy my friend! The Heaters in those are very large gauge Nichrome and can last for a lifetime.
Your wife can make shave mugs too!
Be well!
~Richard

The taxman isn't my favorite person either, operating costs of growing a "company" somehow keeps profits out of reach...nice I have tried so many times to anneal in a camp fire (I have an abundance of springs from railroad cars available working for the railroad) to no avail, maybe I can use your excuse to SWMBO for an oven...that doubles as a 1300C bakery for cookies

Originally Posted by Geezer

Brownies for sure!!
......Your wife can make shave mugs too!
Be well!
~Richard

It would be nice to find another person who makes large shave mugs, I would like a spare...gotta have a spare or three!