Show us your Door Thread

[JRPizza]

Well, I'm afraid the ship has sailed on thermocouples, unless I want to do exploratory drilling into my almost completed dome. Colin, are you saying you mostly use the TC's and the door thermometer isn't as useful for you?

[oasiscdm]

Hi JR

I have thermometer in door and 2 thermocouple insertion tubes on each side of my oven. one tube on each side is 10mm from the inside of the oven the other tube on each side is about 15mm from the outside of the firebrick.

reason is I use either side to cook, I use the temps to determine my equalisation temperature. i use the half way point of the 2 temperatures to determine when I close the door shutting it 50c above the temperature i desire for cooking the following day. Seems to work really well.

[UtahBeehiver]

JR,

My door is without a thermometer. I installed TCs, in the the dome to measure heat saturation but I hardly ever use them now (maybe when I start baking bread it might be different). For the most part I just use my thermo gun to get a ball park temperature similar to what DJ says.

[deejayoh]

Mine is pretty reliably off by 50 degrees F to the low side. It's nice to know at a glance where the oven is, even if it is not 100% accurate.

[JRPizza]

For those that have build their doors with and without thermometers, what are your thoughts? Reading through this thread and the forum, there seems to be a pretty even split between with and without. I have read that air temperature is not the best indicator of how hot the oven is - do those without wish they had them, and are those with glad they have them in their doors?

[deejayoh]

Made my door the same way, only I used stainless steel with 4 inches of ceramic board inside. works very well, my question is have you added a gasket to the back? If so what type of material did you use and any adhesive to hold it on? thanks Campmaki

I just bought some gasket. Same stuff that sevenacre used. But I need to sand down the door and repaint it before I apply. Right now it has too much surface rust from being exposed to the elements for a couple of winters. As 7 says, it has adhesive on it already. "Will not peel or loosen" it says on the package. if it does loosen, I have 15 feet of it!

[RandyJ]

I forgot to post my door here. so here it goes I made my door from 22 gage mild steel for the inside portion of the door and 16 gage for the outside. I wanted to make sure that the outside would be nice and strong. I filled the inside with 4 "of ceramic board. I cut triangle notches in to the steel every 3" for the bottom and every 1.5" for the top. I was aiming for about a 1\8" gap so ot would be a fairly tight fit. And it is . You need to have it lined up just right or it will no fit.

I bent the metal with a sheet metal pliers. That worked out great. It made it easy to get a nice straight bend. Then I pop rivited the bottom to the inside of the door. And shoved the insulation inside then used bar clamps to pull and bend the sides to where I wanted them, and pop rivited it. Repeated the same for the front.

I used 2 4" u bolts for Handel's and so far the have not even been warm to the touch. I also painted the door with high temp spray paint rates for 1200F. It has held up nicely so far.

Randy

[gastagg]

Stainless fabricated by a friend, 2" thick with CalSil board on inside. FB thermometer. Welding hammer handles.

What would I do different? Friend could have used a lighter gauge steel. I should have used ceramic blanket for insulation. The door is way too heavy. I can get it in and out without a problem, but I don't think anyone else in the fam could. Also, I tried to make the tolerances too small and had to shave off some mortar and grind a little bit of brick to get the door in all the way.

[Campmaki]

There are lots of questions about oven doors, but no official door thread. I thought it would be useful to consolidate a bunch of examples that showed different ways to build oven doors.

I'll start it off!

Door material:
Face is HOT ROLL SHEET / PLATE 0.060" (16 GA) Hot Rolled STEEL
Thermometer protector is HOT ROLL TUBE - SQUARE
0.625" OD x 0.065" Wall A36 Hot Rolled Mild Steel Square Tube

Insulation: Two inches of ceramic fiber blanket

Handles: Gate handles purchased from Home Depot. I was cautioned about using metal but they don't seem to get hot.

Cost: ~$55 if I don't count the welder. About $25 for the metal from Onlinemetals.com; $5 for the handles; $25 for the thermometer (from our hosts); Insulation was leftover from build

Weight: 10 pounds

How it's built: I cut the metal with a metal blade in a jigsaw. Outside plate was based on my entry arch form less 1/2 inch all the way around. The inside plate was based on my oven opening arch less 1/4" all the way around. I cut a 2" strip of steel to go around the outside and welded the whole thing together with a HF cheapy welder that I bought off of craigslist. The door was the first thing I ever welded - and it took a lot of grinding to get it smooth, but it came out pretty well. Took an afternoon to weld it.

How does it work: Pretty well. My temperature ramp about 100 degrees loss a day from the oven; third day temps are in the 250-300 degree range. Thermometer reliably reads 50 degrees lower than the temp my IR thermometer shows for the inside of the oven.

Favorite thing about the door: the weight.


What would I do to improve my door design: I could have made it deeper. Making it 2 1/2 or 3 inches deep would have given more insulation and not cost any more or taken any more time. And I still might add some rope gasket around the door to get a better seal.


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Made my door the same way, only I used stainless steel with 4 inches of ceramic board inside. works very well, my question is have you added a gasket to the back? If so what type of material did you use and any adhesive to hold it on? thanks Campmaki

[mrchipster]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

I havent even built my oven but I took the glass out of my dead indoor ovens door and bought an old pyrex dish for 50cents from a charity shop, ready for my double glazed door.

How is the door coming along? I love my pyrex pot lid door for baking.

[deejayoh]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

Kstronach - that first door was very pretty. Too bad it couldn't take the heat.

[kstronach]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

and here is my new door, nice and simple its a aerated concrete block cut to size to butt up against the reveal with a piece of ply cut to size and screwed on the front, some handles and a flue thermometer in and thats about it, going to add some stove rope round the edge for a better seal.

[kstronach]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

here was my first solid oak insulated door - took ages to make, ended up in flames unfortunately!

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

I havent even built my oven but I took the glass out of my dead indoor ovens door and bought an old pyrex dish for 50cents from a charity shop, ready for my double glazed door.

[SevenAcre]

Re: Show us your Door Thread

Just thought I'd pass this along...

So, for a door seal I thought first of a gasket rope, but then stumbled across LAVALOCK Hi-temp Nomex gaskets primarily used on smokers and BBQs. It's a self stick that actually really sticks, comes in 15 ft lengths for less than 20 bucks and is readily available (think major online superpower). IMO the stuff's great and is practically made for our application. Be careful though, there are two main types and the white is rated for higher temps.
-J