Heat treat oven/kiln

B

BradleySmall

Joined
Mar 6, 2022
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SWMBO has agreed that we need a kiln/HT oven.

However neither of us knows what features to look for.

She would like to be able to fire some pottery. I would like to be able to HT some different metals.

Any suggestions on brands or models? Or at least what do I look for in controls?
 
The issue will be that pottery is tall while blades are long.
Look through the available Evenheat ovens and find one that will hold her items as well as yours. You will want a ramp controller, not a pottery style kiln-sitter.
 
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What about the vertical JenJen vertical ovens? I've heard good things about them from knifemakers.
 
Ken H> said:
What about the vertical JenJen vertical ovens? I've heard good things about them from knifemakers.
Click to expand...
I have the JenKen vertical air bath 30, it’s a 30” tall kiln and it does a phenomenal job and I actually really like the vertical aspect of the kiln. The problem would be i think it would be difficult to use for pottery, it’s really designed to be optimal for knives.
 
Bradley,
Just get whatever oven you need and buy your wife a pottery kiln the size she wants. Pottery kilns are much cheaper than HT ovens. You can get them used from free to 1/4 the full price.
Most knifemakers get by with an 18" or 24" deep standard HT oven. Paragon and Evenheat are the most common ones you see. There are several other good brands. Josh's JenKen looks quite nice. A TAP controller and solid state relays is a wise upgrade. The dongle plug-in will allow you to monitor from you phone or make graphs and charts on your computer.

Josh, those JenKen vertical units look nice. Looks like a salt pot with no tube. The Excalibur is really a good deal for a 50" oven. $3500 fully tricked out. A big asset is it can be used as a 30" unit as well.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Bradley,
Just get whatever oven you need and buy your wife a pottery kiln the size she wants. Pottery kilns are much cheaper than HT ovens. You can get them used from free to 1/4 the full price.
Most knifemakers get by with an 18" or 24" deep standard HT oven. Paragon and Evenheat are the most common ones you see. There are several other good brands. Josh's JenKen looks quite nice. A TAP controller and solid state relays is a wise upgrade. The dongle plug-in will allow you to monitor from you phone or make graphs and charts on your computer.

Josh, those JenKen vertical units look nice. Looks like a salt pot with no tube. The Excalibur is really a good deal for a 50" oven. $3500 fully tricked out. A big asset is it can be used as a 30" unit as well.
Click to expand...
I’ve been very happy with the JenKen, the solid state relay is a must in my opinion, I almost went with the Excalibur unit but rarely make swords over 30” overall length, one day I may get one of those just for longer swords if I start making more medieval pieces. The vertical kilns seem to do a good job keeping everything really straight while heating up and also the kiln itself takes up far less space than an equal size horizontal kiln.
 
When I first started doing HT, I was given a small pottery kiln which I converted to a PID controller. I made a top port and hung in the blades. It would only do a small hunter size knife, and I quickly got a 24" deep standard oven. I re-built the small kiln into a mini-salt-pot for doing niter bluing.

Note to those wishing they had a vertical oven:
Your Paragon/Evenheat/etc. can be flipped upright and you can make a ceramic or stainless-steel cross bar just inside the lid to hang the blades from. Either make a base stand or set it on a layer of firebricks.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Bradley,
Just get whatever oven you need and buy your wife a pottery kiln the size she wants. Pottery kilns are much cheaper than HT ovens. You can get them used from free to 1/4 the full price.
Most knifemakers get by with an 18" or 24" deep standard HT oven. Paragon and Evenheat are the most common ones you see. There are several other good brands. Josh's JenKen looks quite nice. A TAP controller and solid state relays is a wise upgrade. The dongle plug-in will allow you to monitor from you phone or make graphs and charts on your computer.

Josh, those JenKen vertical units look nice. Looks like a salt pot with no tube. The Excalibur is really a good deal for a 50" oven. $3500 fully tricked out. A big asset is it can be used as a 30" unit as well.
Click to expand...
I love how everyone else is able to find all kinds of stuff for free. Seems, that never happens to me.

Point is, if I can get one that does double duty, I can get one. If not, then I can have some extra acetylene or a top off of my propane tank, and just deal with using a torch and a toaster oven.

Anyway, there are a few models we are looking at now.
 
If you definitely need a furnace to do both blades and pottery, get a Paragon PMT-10, PMT-13, or PMT-21, whichever fits the blades or ware you want to fire, or your budget.
They are made for heat treating and have a box shape.
Pay the extra for a Sentinel controller, it will make it incredibly easy to program different schedules and switch back and forth between blades and pottery.
 
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