A Look into the Making of Powder Coating Ovens

People working with metal would back this statement that is about to follow: to buy a powder coating oven, you have to make a choice between it and your kid’s college fee. One scroll through any online shopping website will tell you this isn’t an exaggeration. However, like many powder coating oven manufacturers would agree, you can build one such oven without much hassle. Though some may use a household oven or even a toaster to cure the finish, a lot of people build it themselves. How? Keep reading!

The basics: what is powder coating?
To put it simply, powder coating is process through which a metal receives long lasting, durable finish. The coating is usually of some form of plastic or polymer, with electrostatic charge through a special spray gun.

The process

The frame: A metal frame is most suited for the purpose and can be built with steel studs, easily available at any hardware store. Using either a speed square or utility blade, the studs are cut to fit the size of the panels. Then the frames are assembled together with rivets. The rule of thumb with rivets: the more, the merrier.

The panels: The total number of panels is six - three walls, a floor, one door and a ceiling. After considering the dimensions of each panel frame, they are skinned with sheets of metal.

Insulation: All of the walls of the oven need to be insulated. The insulation is inserted in between the two layers of metal skin of each panel. Usually mineral wool or fiber glasses are the most famous choices for the purpose. The insulations have to be cut to fit the several odd spaces.

Installing the blower and ducting: A convection blower is installed into the oven to keep the air circulation on and maintain the same temperature throughout the entire space of the oven. The ducting inside the walls is done in such a way that it brings down air from the top to the bottom.

Lighting: Depending on the size of the oven, the lighting installed in it is minimized or maximized. Making the lights recessed gets them out of the way of the powder coated metals that will be in the oven.

Heating elements: Heating elements are readily available in online shops or the heating element snapped out of a household oven works too. Depending on the particular oven, heating element of different wattages can be selected.

The door: In its construction, the door is made identical to the other panels, except it has a smaller access door that allows one to check the temperature inside during the process of powder coating.

The control box: The best suited controller for the heating elements of this type of an oven is a PID oven controller. It helps maintain the temperature necessary for the curing process constant.

Thermocouple: Using a thermocouple, the PID controller is connected. It also reads the temperature inside the oven, helping the controller to regulate the temperature.

Wiring and finishing: high temperature wires of suitable length are used to connect the control box and heating elements-after the wiring of the inside of the oven is complete, outside of the oven walls can have normal wiring, which costs less. After installing the wiring, the exterior of the oven walls are skinned over the insulator. Having the floor, the door and two walls in place, the roof is then skinned with the lights and convection blower installed.

And that is how it is done! If for some reason you wanted a powder coating oven, now you know how to build it! If you think you don’t have that much time or resources, you can always approach expert powder coating oven manufacturers. But, with a little bit of perseverance, you can make your own oven and end up saving a lot of money.