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If I could pick a few brains:
I'm thinking about making a wood baking box since my oven is too small. I was thinking a wood box with foil covered foam insulation and banks of maybe three heat lamps on either side wired to a thermostatic switch. I've seen some that maintain a 190-200 range. Put a small cooling fan at one end and a air screen at the other to get a convection effect.
I'm not an electrical engineer-do you more knowledgeable folks here see any major flaw in this plan or should I just go with plan B and buy a used oven?
Thanks
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Terry, I don't think you'll need to use heat lamp bulbs. Regular incandescent bulbs put out a lot of heat. Some people use them to in their benders. When you get the sockets for the bulbs, get the ceramic ones, not the plastic ones.

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Aoibeann

Will a top fit in your oven tilted ???? One of my students oven wouldnt have one sit in flat either, so with the top stickered and bound with wire, he put it in angled .. worked fine.

As for your other idea, as long as you can control the temp .. sure.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Are you guys drying your own tops from the green state.......or are you "cooking" your tops as some folks do (like Taylor) to minimize cracking and improve tone? I realize not everyone believes in the improvements......but hopefully you understand my question.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Thanks for the advice. Yes I am talking about baking a top that is already dried to stabilize the wood. Kind of "pre-age" it. Wood that I've used that was cut 30 years ago has been fine but I've seen more movement with more recently cut stuff and that's what I want to improve on.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Mine's just a particle board box lined with foil with 2) 200-watt light bulbs. There is a vent slot in the bottom and the top is split in half so I can adjust the opening to adjust the temp. It holds 8 halves (4 tops) and gets up to 200 degrees pretty quick. It has a rheostat too but it seems to just stay all the way open. Can't see why you would need a fan unless you have a pretty large box and need to even out the heat.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

I was a industrial electrician in the auto industry and we used to use Infra red lamps in sheet metal boxes with open fronts to heat rubber parts on the assembly lines.These did a great job to heat the parts, but if the operators put parts too close to the lamps they were way to hot. If was doing something like this for wood I would want to have the heating elements as far from the wood as possible. I think that it would be a good use for my programmable temperature controller that I use for the side bending heat blanket, this and a couple light bulbs should do a good job of creating an even heat. I would be a little concerned with using a wood box unless it had some real good insulation on the inside as we would be leaving this on for long period of time.

I had a model airplane friend who made carbon fiber and epoxy tuned pipes and propellers as a cottage industry supplier, he purchased an old stove with a large oven that he constantly ran in his shop to cure the parts in. These can be often found for free or real cheap and since we would only need the oven the rest of the stove does not even need to function. This would be cheaper and a lot safer than a home made box heater.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866