Powder coating - in an electric smoker?

Anyone have any experience powder coating in an electric smoker? It looks like 400 F is both possible and workable. Eloectric smokers are cheap and hold much bigger pieces than a toaster oven. Less messy than paint for batches of small parts? 

Anything that will hit 400F and stay there should work fine.  I use a standard electric kitchen oven.

Yer talkin new, right?

My electric smoker only goes to 250. 

A household oven works well and you can pick one up at Habitat for $25. 

Still only 110 V in the Grosh and the local Habitat store is not priced like that. At all. I'm hoping that this works and that I can loan it out to friends that don't have 220V either.

I use a 110v "Lab Oven" for all my powdercoating needs as I don't have a 220v source in my glorified shed, either.  It takes a while to come up to temp, but it will get to 500F if you leave it alone for long enough.  I can just get a 15" wheel into mine, but they come in a wide variety of sizes.  CL, gov't auction sites, eBay are good places to look.  They seem to trade for $100+, but more bargain friendly ones do come up from time to time.

There's some DIY curing oven builds online, typical GRM project. I'd like to build one to size to fit a MC frame at least.

It should work, just leave out the mesquite.  The only issue might be time to preheat.  There are times when certain long items won't fit in the kitchen oven I use where it would be easy to hang it in a smoker.  If you need a larger over, build your own.

The long game is to build an oven that will fit things like crossmembers. Now that I'm thinking about it, it might make sense to have something small like a toaster oven anyway. There will always be a time when you want to hit something like a hood latch or an alternator bracket where heating up something the size of a chest freezer would be inefficient. 

This forum is great for off-the-wall thinking. So bear with me here. If an electric smoker works, could a gas fired BBQ type of device do it? My BBQ will hit 500 degrees pretty easily. It wouldn't be that hard to build an indirect fired unit if direct fired bothered the powdercoat for some reason I don't understand.

Along the line of the gas fired oven, would something like this work?

https://www.woodmagazine.com/project-plans/outdoor/backyard-barbecue-smoke-shack-downloadable-plan

Gas fired could lead to gas exploded. You gotta go electric. 

Keep looking. I had a toaster oven for small things like fasteners, and a double oven. This gave me papa bear, momma bear, and baby bear sized ovens. 

Total outlay, $50 I think. 

I stepped up to a large kitchen oven anf built a 'dog house' out of foam insulation boards that allows me to open the door, doubling my cooking size. 

Next step is to take the burners from the top of the stove and make my own oven. 

Toaster ovens at Wally World are less than $40. HF is local and I think they have the powder coat guns in stock. Time to experiment!

I powder coat bullets in my oven.  I can do about 200 at a time, roughly, of 230GR 30 caliber using both racks.  Super Secret:  Non-stick aluminum foil.  The stuff is magic. A toaster oven would work, but I doubt I could do more than about 30 at a time.

Find an old metal lined chest freezer . Remove heating elements from said junk oven along with rheostat for temp control, build brackets for elements on the bottom, and brackets to hang parts from. Instant LARGE oven.

I've got another idea for a large by huge brick oven, but getting it up to temp will be time/cost prohibitive.

DrBoost said:

Gas fired could lead to gas exploded. You gotta go electric.

Why would a gas-fired powder coating oven be more likely to explode than a gas-fired kitchen stove, or a gas-fired grill?

In reply to codrus :

Powder in the air plus flame is bad, just like most powdered substances. The right air/fuel mixture plus ignition source is a sure fire way to make things go boom. Grain silo's and the sawdust explosions are proof of that. 

Boom

There's no powder in the air when the heat is turned on.   Still, I think electric would be safer.

I think the actual risk of explosion due to powder in the air is pretty low as long as you're not pre-heating and attempting to spray inside the oven. 

From a baking background, electric ovens heat more evenly and the temperature control is better. 

Great, that's another thing to fit in the garage (though admittedly if the one I found nearby for cheap will fit a wheel inside- and I think it will- I can probably lose the old oven that's been sitting there unused because I don't have 220 in the garage...).

Don't do gas.  A gas flame can reach 1800 degrees F at its kernel.  An electric element doesn't.  Gas heats because of a small, very hot flame.  Electric uses large, less-hot elements.

You'll also have trouble with gas since it releases a large proportion of water vapor which can make the finish cloudy or sometimes even bubbly.

I would think there are 110v options out there.   I would maybe find a smaller water heater for free on CL and just cut the whole bloody thing (shell, insulation, tank) off at the top and hinge it.  Then maybe put a 110v heating element from a smoker in the bottom.  Maybe cut a hole in the bottom and put the biggest space heater you can blowing into it?

I think you might have trouble getting enough BTU from a 110v source to make it really effective, but it might work.

What about going Amish style?  Same insulated water heater tank idea and build a wood fire under it?

I think my first stop would be a website like Grainger to see what you can find.  If you have a 20A circuit, you could cram about 2000W in there on 120v.  Even if you have crappy voltage and a 15A circuit you can still squeeze 1500W  Do a search for "finned strip heaters."  They are basically the heating pieces that you would find inside an electric baseboard heater.  They are usually about 1000W for every 15-18".  Find a used 120v baseboard heater for $20 that someone took out of their house during a renovation and take out a couple sections of the heater.  Install in a free busted water heater sourced from CL (pre-assembled, insulated tank), and splurge for a 400 degree thermostat switch.

Will that get you 400 degrees?  I don't know.  Try it and let us know.

Finned strip heater which you could find in a used baseboard heater like this

Pair it with a free or cheap electric water heater that is busted or leaking

Scavenge a thermostat from an old electric oven in the landfill.  Doesn't matter that its 240v since its just a switch.

That should do it for almost free.

In Powder coating do you have to put the Item In a space that is preheated to 400+ degrees or can you start with Hot and allow some Time to reach needed Temps? or just how long does it need to Bake at needed Temp? You know Large Items /Frames and such Have to have a LARGE door to move them In and out and A Man couldn't stand that much heat Long, Lol.

In reply to curtis73 :

That’s actually an interesting idea... I could probably wire in a 110v electric space heater in place of the heating elements in the (220v) stove I already have, and possibly even use its thermostat to control it...

In reply to curtis73 :

I actually have a dead water heater. Heating coils are cheap enough. Just need to learn about controllers. 

There's powder in the air unless you coat, them let it settle for a long time, THEN turn the oven on.  How long? Hours easily.  And trust me, you'll end up coating part A while part B is in the oven.   

GTXvette, the length of time depends on a few factors. Let's say the oven was 250 when you put an aluminum oil pan in. The temp will drop because you opened the door, naturally. Then you crank the temp up. It'll take time to warm the space, as well as the part. 

Once the powder starts to flow (turn to liquid), let it bake for 20 minutes or so