Wow… Much easier than I would have imagined something like this to be. I love the oven design – [fairly] cheap and effective. I’ll have to keep this project in mind for future builds…

You don’t need an oven to do powder. I use a couple of directional propane heaters. It’s not speedy, but I managed to cook an entire car frame in about 4 hours by moving them around.

@DanS
I’ve used a heat gun for smaller parts, but when you’re doing wheels, something intricate, or if you’re doing large quantities of coating, there is nothing better than an oven.

I, for one, bought an old electric oven from craigslist and it does very well for most parts. Still have problems when you try to do a car frame though.

I haven’t seen a problem with uneven heat when powder coating and using the heat gun either.

Though I would have to say that when welding, if you’re doing full pen welds or using an Exx10 or Exx11 rod, there is no problem with stop and go in the welds.

I’ve never built anything with metal studs or sheetmetal but I’m tempted to give this a try. It would be really cool if the builder make a webpage detailing some of the build notes.

I wonder how hot the oven gets on the outside or if it needed any insulation inside the metal walls.

I like the use of metal studs for the frame. I had that exact same idea for my oven. I’m just using a old kitchen oven right now, but I planned on making it bigger using this same method. Nice. I wonder how well using a propane heater to heat the inside of a metal box would work as an ‘oven’

Here is another home built design using similar materials. http://www.machinebuilders.net/plans/gallery%2FBig%20Kids%2FPowerCoat%20Oven1.pdf
It’s where I first got my idea at.

Aside about welding seams: In most welds, you actually don’t want to make one giant continuous seam. Well you might *want* to, but you don’t, because the workpieces warp and distort less when you do the weld in short segments, allowing some time for the heat to dissipate between welding sessions.

When you do the weld right, it is still as strong as the workpiece.

This oven should maintain a constant level of heat so it should work fine. Many home applicators use ovens where the heat fluctuates widely so the powder doesn’t bond properly.

Hey I was wondering for the man that used the directional propane heater how many btu’s where they rated for?