Need help picking a heat treatment oven.

DeadboxHero

DeadboxHero

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Mar 22, 2014
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I'm picking up a second job for the summer to buy a heat treat oven.

What's a good budget? $2,000?
Also I hear some ovens have cold spots?

What in your experience is a good oven?
I see lots of options but I have no experience with them.

Thought Id check with the heads here to supplement my reading since there is alot of experience here.
 
I built my own. Mostly because I like to build stuff. I know the Evenheat ovens are very popular. I like the drop door on the paragon ovens myself. I think the main thing is to make sure it is ACCURATE in temperature readings. I'm not sure about "cold spots". You do want to keep the tips away from being really close to the coils. My take is that once the oven is up to temp, the whole thing becomes a thermal mass so I can't see having one part of the oven being much hotter or colder than another. At least not to the degree that it could or even should be addressed. When the coils fire to maintain the temp, it is going to get a hot spike in close proximity to the coil, hence why you wouldn't the tip of the knife near that spot. There are a number of control units, and most recommend getting one with a ramp/ soak function. I have that function, but since I don't like to leave my oven unattended, I don't really use it currently. I CAN see where having an alarm for the soak time being complete would be useful. Also one where you can program different regimens for different steel types. I'm no expert, and others will probably disagree, but this is just my take/ experience.
 
not to derail, but if there was a feasible way to make an oven that was wide and shallow, I would love that. I do long blades, but doing a run of a bunch of shorter blades, and having them stacked front to back is kind of a pain.
 
I don't have a lot to add aside from two things. First I would suggest going 240v if possible. The ramp time is quicker and time is money for many people. The 240 ovens usually have a bit higher temp range also, which may or may not matter to you. If I am going to do lots of work at say 1975 degrees, I have more faith in an oven with a max of 2200 being able to easily hit and hold that rather than an oven with a max of say 2000. I always say there is no kill like overkill. Secondly, I would suggest going larger than you think you need right now. That's a principle of buy once and be done. If you currently stick to knives that are under 12 inches and buy a 14 inch kiln, is fine right now. But eventually you will probably want to do some bigger blades that may not fit. My longest blade is typically 11 inches and i planned to buy an 18 inch kiln if possible. In the end I managed to snag a barely used 240v Evenheat 22.5 with set pro for $350 from a retiring maker, and am glad I did. A recent knife was 15 inches and that extra wiggle room was nice. Remember when doing stainless in a pouch, that the pouch will probably add a good 2 inches or so to the actual length, and you don't want to run short.
 
I second Grayzer. I made my oven 22.5 inches long and it's 240v. I'm really glad i went longer. I do a lot of kitchen knives and I can fit a row in the back and a row in the front of shorter knives.
 
Good stuff Bros,

Also, what are some thoughts one the stacked ovens like the Cress brand stuff?
 
By stacked I assume you mean top opening? If that's what you mean most people do not use them for a few reasons. 1 - Big top opening loses a lot of heat quickly when opening, which is an issue when quenching multiple blades. 2 - That lost heat is rising directly into your face and chest when you open it. A blast of 1900 degree air is not going to be pleasant. 3 - For what we do. Length is more important than depth because once the kiln floor is covered in a layer of knives, you are just heating all that other height for nothing. 4 - Unless set up with a proper controller most are designed to run at a high temp controlled by just A dial and turned off by a melting "cone" once the desired temperature is hit. They can be modified to kind of function for our purposes but they are not the best option.
 
I looked hard at both evenheat and Paragon. I went with ano evenheat 22.5 with rampmaster. Since that time I've had the chance to meet and talk with the owners of evenheat on a few occasions and that has reaffirmed that I made the right decision. Awesome oven, awesome service! Wish I had gotten the tap Conot roller though.
 
Guess this all boils down to how serious you are about this. If you're a hobbyist, and want to dip your toes in the pool, then Paragon and Evenheat, as well as a few others, have inexpensive kilns that will 'do the job'.

If, however, you're looking for better, I would strongly suggest you consider posing this question to people that design and develop these tools. The vast majority of us use kilns that are barely beyond hobbyist devices, and quite frankly aren't up to the needs of someone interested in pursuing good temperature control.

ALL kilns display temperature variation throughout them - the degree to how much they do is dependent heavily upon the quality of the design. The Cress kiln you've mentioned is a textbook example of this - they make excellent quality kilns for small tool rooms and knifemakers, however their pricing is beyond what we, as knifemakers, have come to expect to pay because we've set our sights low and don't understand the differences in construction and performance.

Don't rely on other knifemakers for information - we rarely go beyond asking one another for opinions, rather than asking industry developers and engineers for facts.
 
I like my evenheat, the paragon seems a little better built but knowing me like I do, I could see a lot of burned hands reaching over the door.
 
Good stuff Bros.

I really appreciate all the information from you guys
Thanks Matt

Thanks grayzer, Kevin, Hoffman

I appreciate it.

Needed some direction.
 
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