It measures 4’ x 4’ x 8’. It uses 3 100 watt bulbs and can reach a temp 40 degrees hotter than my shop. It has a big wall that I can store a bunch of stuff on. I love it.
Thats nifty man…
And nice storage set-up with all the hooks for your tools…could it be that you’re a neat-freak?
Josh
Quote:
It measures 4’ x 4’ x 8’. It uses 3 100 watt bulbs and can reach a temp 40 degrees hotter than my shop.Hey mister
great stuff, i have yet to make one… gets me going though. is that degrees fahrenheit, yes?
Your epoxy will love you for that!
Nice looking rig. If you havent already – think about adding a small fan to circulate the air around the box. Works like a big convection oven with better heat dispersion and less hot/cold spots. Worked well for the temporary oven boxes I have made in the past. I also stuck some thermometers through the wall (BBQ) or use a wireless cooking thermometer for external temp indication.
yoyo
nice setup… I like your oven. What temp are you trying to get it too? about 120F or so?
I usually keep it between 90 and 100 degrees fahrenheit. The hottest I have gotten it is 110. The temp in the shop is around 50 to 65 during the day, and it sometimes gets to the 30’s at night. I have a concrete thermometer stuck in the thing next to the light switch. You can see it on the outside wall next to the Bostitch nail gun. I need to get a thermostat for it. I have used a fan to blow air over the boards when doing hotcoats. I may be too nervous but is there any risk of fire from the spark in the fan’s motor igniting gasses from resin? or are they not flamable.
lpcdefg,
About the fan - yeah you make a good point about flammability. Sorry I forgot to mention that I only use the box for post curing epoxy which certainly releases much less volatile components.
I worried about flammability and never felt comfortable with the fan inside the box. My boxes were much smaller than yours with only one lamp – I used a small fan that forced a slight flow of fresh air into the box (the fan motor was outside the box) and I had a crude adjustable vent located so that I got some cross flow. By adjusting the vent opening I regulated how much fresh air went into the box as needed to maintain my temp - seemed to work OK. I came up with the fan idea since the area closest to the lamp always seemed warmer than other sections.
Maybe this is not as much of an issue with the volume of your box and the proximity of the lamps to the boards…
yoyo
hi,,,i just had a bad week , waiting for my last epoxy board is dry, but that never happened....take of the glass and reglass again,...
i am thinking in to build a cure resin oven...
9ft x 2ft x 2ft,,,,,,,foiled insulated, but i dont know if i can use Heating lights, or just a heating fan(office heating fan)
heating lihts: http://www.bltdirect.com/product.php?pid=7778
or office heating fan: http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/duracraft-2kw-horizontal-fan-heater-2/path/home-office-heaters-2
could someone give any hepl with this, there some surfboards still waiting to be finish, i live in england, and at the moment the temperature is around 0 Cel.. and is not still winter,,,i can`t wait for winter...is gonna be fun...
any help is welcome...
Hi -
I made a curing chamber from foil covered foam panels. I set up two lightbulb fixtures and by switching out bulbs, can control the temperature decently. I placed sheets of aluminum foil over the bulbs to deflect direct heat. A small fan may be an improvement and help distribute the heat better but it allows me to use epoxy in the dead of winter here in Central California where it has been near freezing at night. A probe thermometer should be used to monitor the temperature until you figure out the bulb wattage. You could also wire in a thermostat to turn the bulbs off at a specified temperature.
John - You know that’s gotta be one great thermometer… Ha!
I had an “oven,” but when my shed got to cold for me to work in comfortably, I gave myself an early Christmas gift five years ago, and insulated my whole shed… One space heater and I can keep the shed in the 90’s with ease, when the out side temps are in the 30’s… Stoke!
hey jf, fellow uk builder here!
welcome to sways! where abouts in uk are u? im in manchester. ive started doing my epoxy boards in my front room when the temps are low but im getting a workshop in january and oven is top priority. ive postcured a few boards now and it makes such a difference!
id be wary of going down the office fan route as a, you’ll prob burn it out pretty quick given that you’ll need to run it for 4 hrs minimum and b, there might be flammability issues.
one thing im considering for my new workshop is creating an insulated box with copper plumbing pipe running around the inside, either the flexible stuff or legnths soldered together then connect it to the central heating system via some plastic radiator pipe, that way with valves it could be disconnected and moved.
what do u guys think to that idea?
In the downtime you could rent that out as a sauna for $10/hr , or as a Holistic Cleansing and Healing Detox Womb for $150/hr.
Just replace the fibreglass with Astroturf.
Honestly, its great and you could smoke hams with Xmas coming up.
hi mate...thanks surfingdog for the welcome..
i am based in london, and i from south america, i was shaping in chile and ecuador, but i moved here because me wife is from england, and we are moveing to devon or cornwall the next yer after she finish her degree.
thanks for the advice of the heater fan, i quiet difficult for me glassing surfboard now, this never happened to me me before, i was livng in war places, sometimes hot places...so i just was thinking in built this oven, becuase i have one of the small heating fan inmy office, and sometimes the fan is turn on for some hours, and can gime 20 degres celsius in the office, nd is with a thermostat as well, and you can control the temperatue and the fan power as well. so that was my idea, but now i ahve to think what to do,,,lol
thanks for the advice, i am thinksing now in the heating lights with small fans....but the problem i think with the heating lights, is than maybe you can heat just want place i the board, and that worried to me,..what other choices do i have??
I made my box out of heavy double wall corrugated container board (“Card board”), and I made a duct system around a small space heater out of single wall “card board.” I’d checked the heater first, the box around it never got hot, and I made sure the duct layout was tight and firm, so it never got near the front. Long story short - I made it to send air in to the 10’ box at 3 points, and left a little out vent on the box and the fan blew the hot air in and around… worked great, never got to hot anywhere, but was close to 100f everywhere…
It was the rest of my shed that was cold as a fridge…
hey tayloro, thanks for the information, but, do you have any pictures ? so you could help me for this project. i am worried about make the oven, i dont wanna burn my shed..
every information or pictures could be great....
Cheers mate...
do you have any pictures ?
Apparently you haven’t read any of my pathetic excuses for not having pictures… Ha!
But - If all goes well, and Santa believes my story about trying to be a good boy this year… I’ll be getting a camera! Stoked!
But, unfortunately for this thread, that custom box, and vent system, are long gone.
“Uncle” Dale often told me to buy some old hair dryers, and just make a hole in the box to fit them into… I think if you make sure the “heater” doesn’t get very hot on the out side, as most are made to do, and had a good secure connection to your “vent,” there’d be nothing to worry about. Some one here can probably tell us off the top of their head how hot “card board” has to get to combust, and I’m sure it’s well over the 100, or so, degrees F we are trying to get to.
Thanks taylor,,,i just tried putting the haur dryer in the shed, just in a wall, and at the moment i have 20 degrees celcius even outside is 3 degrees,,,so, i can work well before i start making the oven, i think i will trie the 2 options, first the heating fan, and then the heating lights...
but at the moment i am not having problems galssing,,,i have a nice temperature to work and kick the resin in just 2 hours,,
cheers mate,,,
Sounds like you are on the right track.
There was thread once about “post cure” for epoxy. One view was to heat 'em up a bit, @ 110F, if I recall, for a day or two, and that would get 'em ready. Another view, one that I end up falling into, and some others take the same approach - let the board “cure” in a nice warm place, 70’s-90’s(F), for a week or two. Especially the lam. As it is, for me, by the time I’m done putting the boxes in, which I try to get to right away - so the caps have as much time to “cure” as possible too, leash loop, yeah, leash loop, why buy some cups, cut a hole, etc., when I can use some of my sweet carbon fiber tow (Thanks again Keith… Ha!), sanding the whole thing, and finish coating, the lam has been in my warm shed for a week or two anyway.