rod oven question

[barstow151]

I'm trying to make a rod oven stabilizer out of an old fridge, does anyone have any ideas how to do this with out burning my garage down, I've got a 150 watt heat lamp in there and had to shut her down last night cause of the heat, I got a thermometer today I'm gonna go put in there just to see how how it gets before it starts melting something if it does, I've got almost 200 lbs of rod in there right now, any information would be helpfull.

[burninbriar]

I've heard of people just useing a light bulb ? I dont have one so hopefully some one else will get in on this.

[barstow151]

I put that thermometer in there and it's not quite up to 150 degrees yet, I suppose it is just gonna keep getting hotter and hotter since the heat light is in an enclosed unit, and just wondering what the melt temp. on the plastic on the inside door of the fridge, thought about riveting aluminum on the inside door and pull off all the plastic shell, just don't want to lose the insulation, I was thinking maybe a flood light might be a better option, but want to keep the temp up if I can, without having a problem

[burninbriar]

I might be mistaken here but I think the refrigerater idea is more for a dry storage facility than for use as a rod oven. I think you should, as you seem to be, be very cautious of making it hot as to be used as an oven.

[Bart]

This subject of a Rod stabilizer is a little over my head, but I do know that those that use Refrigerators for cold smoking meat never exceed 90 degrees. I've seen these refrigerators after years of use and the shelves are sagging from the heat, but there is no charring of the plastics. If you need more than 90 degrees of temperature than you might be exceeding the limits of a refrigerator.

You can buy heating elemets that are used for smoking. Put it on the bottom the frig, but you will probably need to add some ventilation to help control the temp.

Or try and find some sort of a heating elemet that has a thermostat to help control temp.

Hope this helped a little.

Frank

[rcnemo]

Using a fridge for a rod oven is very common for some of the smaller shop that I get into. Most of the ones that I have seen have metal shelving and use only about a 100 watt bulb. A heat lamp will concentrate too much heat in a small area and create a hot spot that could cause some damage.

My best advice is to just be careful... the whole idea is to keep the moisture out of the rods.

Nemo

[Ray C.]

I read something saying 140 was a good temp.

[JD in Socal]

You don't need a heat lamp; a regular bulb will give you the small amount of heat that is needed in the enclose & insulated space.

I don't know how critical it is to maintain the temperature of the rod oven, but that lightbulb is going to burn out sometime and the heat will go away. Go to your local gunshop and you can buy a heating element that is made for this purpose. They look like small metal rods that plug in, and stay warm to the touch. In the enclose space of a gun safe, they keep the temperature just warm enough to prevent moisture from being a problem. I don't know the heat requirement for a rod oven, but I know these heating elements run for years with no problems.

JD

[garth]

hi we have an old frig at work as rod storage it has 1- 100wat bulb in it it stays around 110 deg inside with that and seems to work just fine no moisture in the rods and the bulb seems to last 9 mo. or so metal shelves are a must even better if you can make expanded metal holders for the rod so as to help heet evenly hope this helps

[barstow151]

I decided to keep the heat lamp, and went out to home depot and got a thermastat for a portable forced air heater it has settings from 40-90 degrees, and it's set at 90, and it does shut down and back on again so it does work, thanks for all the ideas and information, it did get up to just over 150 yesterday, I sure feel alot better with the thermastat in there, this was my first post, I've been reading for 4-5 months trying to get ideas, for welding table, headache rack, go kart, etc, I'll send some pics maybe even a video of my super lawn mower pulling wheellies and running 50 miles an hour. THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE