Jen Ken Knife Oven experiences?

E

ER Sheldon

Joined
Dec 21, 2020
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I have been looking at the Jen Ken fiber front loading ovens and the vertical air bath ovens. There doesn’t seem to be as much information on them compared with Paragon and Evenheat. The prices are comparable though.

The front loading ovens use only top mounted quartz wrapped elements. Are there any advantages or disadvantages to this style element?

The vertical air baths claim to eliminate blade warping. Not sure if this is true or just marketing.

Would love to hear from anyone who has experience with a Jen Ken.
 
No experience, but that front loader has some nice attributes with the wool sealed door and non-exposed elements. Maybe the chamber size is a little over the top in terms of height and width?
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Reminds me some about my kiln, that I am very happy with. Also has the wool door and protected elements, top only.
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I’m interested in this thread as well, as I’m just about ready to pull the trigger on a vertical air bath 30. They appear to be great ovens.
 
Yeah me too... I called them last week and also emailed. No response so far so we'll see how that goes... I'm chalking it up to the holidays but if they don't get back I'll go with someone else. I hate bad customer service
 
I have the front loader. By not using fire bricks it heats up a lot faster. Holds temp extremely well. Have absolutely no complaints. If you make large kitchen knives you’d want the bigger version. I make folders so the smaller one is perfect. I prefer foil for stainless blades which is why I chose not to get the vertical one.
 
I spoke with one of their customer service representatives yesterday. I had some questions about some contradictory specs on their website. She looked it up and texted back a brief reply. Their attention to detail concerning technical information is lacking.

I politely pointed out that they should update their website so it was accurate for each model. She asked where I found the misinformation and I sent her some screenshots. She seemed thankful and said she would tell their website guy.

I then browsed the Evenheat website and it was night and day difference. Everything was accurate and thorough. Much more professional.
 
I have the 21"airbath and absolutely love it. I haven't used any other brand, but can see a definite advantage if you are doing larger batches of knives. As for the claim of eliminating warps, I think it does help, but can say I still get warps occasionally.
 
Gene Kimmi said:
I have the 21"airbath and absolutely love it. I haven't used any other brand, but can see a definite advantage if you are doing larger batches of knives. As for the claim of eliminating warps, I think it does help, but can say I still get warps occasionally.
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Do you wrap any blades in foil? If so, how do you hang them?
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Do you wrap any blades in foil? If so, how do you hang them?
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There are spring clamps provided in the kit that you can clamp on to the foil wrapped tang and hang across the rods. The only other option is to put a hole in the foil for a pin to pass through a tang hole, which kind of defeats the purpose to me. I ended up going with the 30” vertical air bath oven. Can’t wait for it to get here and get started properly heat treating my knives.
 
Blackdirt cowboy said:
There are spring clamps provided in the kit that you can clamp on to the foil wrapped tang and hang across the rods. The only other option is to put a hole in the foil for a pin to pass through a tang hole, which kind of defeats the purpose to me. I ended up going with the 30” vertical air bath oven. Can’t wait for it to get here and get started properly heat treating my knives.
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Don't use the springs on foil packs. The springs loose tension when heated and the foil packs fall, ask me how I know. I leave one end of the pack long and roll a pin up in it to hang them by.
 
Gene Kimmi said:
I have the 21"airbath and absolutely love it. I haven't used any other brand, but can see a definite advantage if you are doing larger batches of knives. As for the claim of eliminating warps, I think it does help, but can say I still get warps occasionally.
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Can u tell me what you don’t like about it? Thanks
 
HSC /// said:
Can u tell me what you don’t like about it? Thanks
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The only thing I can think of is that it takes about 6 hours to cool to tempering temperatures from austenitizing temperatures.

Like I said, I have never been around any other brand ovens, but there isn't really anything I don't like about this one. It comes with a frame on wheels so it can be rolled around, which is nice if you don't have a dedicated place for it. It heats up quick, I think I timed it at 27 minutes to hit 1500. When normalizing or thermal cycling, I've had up to 19 knives in it at the same time with room for more. Once it hits the set temperature, I let it run for another 15 to 20 minutes to equalize, then it holds a very tight tolerance on the set temperature.
 
I am also looking at a Fibre front loader 18" model. For those that have one I wonder if you could comment on time to heat up and also the cool down? One of the sell points Jen-Ken uses is that this is very fast. I wonder if that means it gets down to tempering temperatures quick enough to use it for this rather than a second taoster oven set-up?

Any other comments on the fibre front loaders good or bad would be really appreciated.

Thanks
Ian
 
I cools down much faster and could likely get down to tempering temperature if doing cryo or dry ice treatment. Still takes time but significantly less than my old kiln. I still use a PID controlled toaster oven tempering for convenience.
 
I called jen-ken... They said that it's not accurate for tempering below 600f due to the way its set up.
 
That is interesting. The width and height of the 18 inch front loader seems a bit big to me? Maybe there is a reason for that with the design or it just means it is more versatile for general metal HT (other than knife shaped objects)?
 
This is definitely an interesting thread to read, i was pretry set on a new paragon 24in but these Jen Ken fibre models look like an interesting option. I know they use the heating elements only on the top as a selling point but i would have figured that elements on the sides would make more sense.
 
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