Coating Curing Rifle Oven

[Good]

Anyone make an oven for curing rifle coatings? I'm going to build something similar soon. Anyone have any ideas on what to do/not do concerning this? Mine will not be identical, but similar to this.

heater1

Thanks,

Tim.

[zupatun]

I use heating duct wrapped in insulation. Hang from ceiling or place on floor. I hang the action from wires threaded through the action onto eye-hooks inside the duct (I think I use 8" dia duct). I use a thermocouple inside the action or barrel to measure the temperature of the steel as it's heating.

I use a simple heat gun I bought from Home Depot. I put covers on each end and cut a hole in one end for the heat gun and a small exhaust on the exit side. I use baffles to make sure I'm indirectly heating the action--so the gun exhause isn't impinging on the action or barrel directly. I control the temperature by varying the amount of makup air and exhaust--only vary roughly and I can turn it off on occaision to control temperature...and keep an eye on everything.

Don't have a pic as I'm at work, but that's my setup...

Matt

[Good]

Thanks Matt, I too am thinking of using AC/heater duct. There are sections that are insulated already that just need endcaps and should work well. We'll see. I plan to use those charcoal starters in the article also, probably 3 spread evenly for even distribution of heat. I like the vertical idea, but I'm not sure how to hang items without messing up the coating.

[royinidaho]

Originally Posted by Good

Anyone make an oven for curing rifle coatings? I'm going to build something similar soon. Anyone have any ideas on what to do/not do concerning this? Mine will not be identical, but similar to this.

heater1

Thanks,

Tim.

Tim,

The one you show would be my choice for the task. A big plus would be uniform temperature through out the oven.

A thermostat for temperature control would be easy to do plus reduce the amount of attention needed to monitor the operation.

One of these days I'll be doing the same thing and will be using that pattern.

[zupatun]

Nice thing about both approaches is that you can get uniformity using radiation heating or convection...long as you shield your action from the heating elements in the first approach and use some type of baffle/diffuser in the second.

Either way you should get pretty even temperature distribution. I like the heat gun because it's pretty cheap and easy to implement from a power standpoint. I also have a variac so I can adjust the output as well...

I think both ways are doable...and projects are fun anyhow.

Best of luck.

Matt