Heat treat oven

[Eaglewood]

I decided that I needed a more controlled method of heat treating than a torch so this is what I came up with. I didn’t want to “glue “ the bricks so I used gasket rope in a dado to insure a seal and made the frame so that it clamped the bricks. The unit has one inch of insulation around the bricks and seems to work as the outside temperature at 2000 degrees is less than 200 degrees with no detectable leakage around the door.
Initially I had problems with the Kanthal wire oxidizing and the double twisting of the wire to the supply didn’t work either so I welded the wire to 1/4 bolts to feed to the outside and that cured both problems.

I elected to use a long thermocouple with a collet arrangement to allow me to position the probe as close as possible to the part being treated.

The controller is a typical PID with SSR and I sized the wire(16 gage) to supply about 2800 watts which seems about right for the size of the chamber (8 1/2x9x13)

I also kind of attempted to calibrate the oven by melting salt,lead,aluminum and copper and it seems to be accurate. I have more pics if anyone has questions and comments and critiques are welcome. I would appreciate suggestions to make the oven better. I am used to rework😃