Recommendation? Heat treat oven

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Blackdirt cowboy

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Oct 29, 2015
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I’ve been heat treating simple carbon steels in my forge, but I want to step up my game and begging to use some stainless steels. Thus, I’m thinking about buying a heat treat oven. I know I can send the blades off for a nominal fee and have it done, but I just like to know that I’ve done every step of the process myself. But here’s the catch. I only have 110v service. I do all my knife making on my carport, and I don’t have any 220v plugs outside and I have no interest in adding any until I build a shop. Are there any 110v ovens worth having? If you have one, could you tell me what you like and dislike about it?
 
All my appliances are propane. Only thing that’s 220 in my house is the A/C units and they’re hard wired. I know I could jump off of them and install a plug, but then I couldn’t heat treat while the A/C is running.
 
I have the JenKen front loader. I absolutely love it but I also don’t make any massive knives. It heats up very quickly (2,000* in under an hour) and holds temperature very consistently.
 
One thing to keep in mind is if your working in your carport and don’t have a space to leave the oven setup it’s going to be an absolute pain, most of the 110v models will take 30-60 minutes to get up to temp, for stainless steel temps probably closer to 60 minutes, then you need to let the oven equalize for maybe another 30 minutes to fully heat the insulation and reduce temp swings then it’s going to take 30-60 minutes roughly in soak times depending on the stainless steel. So over 3 hours setup in the carport just for the first knife. Thats 3 hours of electricity, stainless foil, plates for plate quench, air compressor depending on the steel, and the initial cost of the oven. What I’d suggest is prototype an idea at home in carbon steel and then have someone like JT heat treat a stainless blade once you have a design you like. Then later down the line if you find you have the space and really want to get a oven and know you’ll be using it a lot then look into it again. I’d say the 240v ovens are really the best way to go if your going to get one. Just my opinion.
 
Blackdirt cowboy said:
What’s the maximum length knife you can fit in that oven?
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Looking at their site for the JenKen the only 110v option is 12” deep by 11” wide and 9” tall. Again if you just go the 240v route for $300 more choosing the solid state relay and 12 key controller you can get their 24” deep oven same width and height so double the chamber length and blade size you can ht. It’s really a no brainer if your going to get an oven, maybe look on your electrical box and see if you have room to run a sub panel for your garage and add in 240v it wouldn’t be hard to do and may cost you less than your thinking. But I’d still make sure I have somewhere to setup the kiln permanently inside.
 
Those are great points, Joshua. Initially, I was against running 220 to the carport due to the aesthetics of having exposed wire or conduit. But after studying my situation, I think I can run the 220 out there and be able to hide it enough that it won’t be an eyesore. I know this will be the best in the long run. I already have plenty of 110 outlets out there. I may just eliminate one of the 110 outlets, rewire it, and replace it with a 220v outlet.
 
And my carport is freaking huge, so I have a corner of it set up as my shop. I have plenty of room to set up an oven and leave it there permanently. I just cover everything with a tarp when I’m not using it to keep the blowing rain off of things. So, now that we have that problem solved, any recommendations for a 220v oven?
 
looking at different options I’d probably recommend the JenKen 24” front loader price wise it’s about $1600 plus shipping and the idea of the radiant heat from the top down makes a lot of sense and seems like it would work quickly compared to some other ovens on the market. I recently had a pretty bad experience with a paragon oven and really couldn’t recommend them. Ended up having so many issues with a oven from them that I had to send it back, I don’t want to say too much because they did give a full refund because of the issues but up to talking to the president of the company the customer service was terrible.
 
Spalted, that’s a great idea. I can install the plug in the ceiling of the carport and just make a drop plug to run the oven. Looks like I have another project to add to the list.
 
Joshua Fisher said:
looking at different options I’d probably recommend the JenKen 24” front loader price wise it’s about $1600 plus shipping and the idea of the radiant heat from the top down makes a lot of sense and seems like it would work quickly compared to some other ovens on the market. I recently had a pretty bad experience with a paragon oven and really couldn’t recommend them. Ended up having so many issues with a oven from them that I had to send it back, I don’t want to say too much because they did give a full refund because of the issues but up to talking to the president of the company the customer service was terrible.
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That’s unfortunate to here about the paragon ovens. They’re only an hour and a half up the road from me. Those were ovens I was seriously considering.
 
razor-edge-knives said:
How is jenken's customer service?
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I haven’t had any issues since I got mine. But before I purchased I talked to them multiple times by phone and they even gave me other makers contact info so I could look at their ovens before I made a choice on which one I was going to purchase. They gave a conservative time frame on when mine would be completed and beat their estimate by a week. Would have been a few days faster but they completed it on a Friday and missed the pickup window as it had to cool down after testing before it could be crated up
 
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