Cheap annealing oven

I'm working on a project right now that is A2 tool steel. As I am fairly new to CNC, I have seen some obvious signs of work hardening (ironically when I'm being to cautious). If I did work harden an area I was working, are you saying I could use a toaster over to anneal the part and give it another go? If the answer is yes...this would be something I would also be interested in. Would a oven work at well? I have no idea the exact temps but I thought it was something like 450* for a couple hours? I'm not sure if that is dependent on type of steel?
I really want one of those Hot Shot ovens but that's a whole investment, but would open doors that are not available via a toaster oven. Honestly annealing would be more useful to me now that tempering/hardening anyway. Make a Pop Tart and anneal a work piece? Sign me up!
 
GunsOfNavarone said:
I'm working on a project right now that is A2 tool steel. As I am fairly new to CNC, I have seen some obvious signs of work hardening (ironically when I'm being to cautious). If I did work harden an area I was working, are you saying I could use a toaster over to anneal the part and give it another go? If the answer is yes...this would be something I would also be interested in. Would a oven work at well? I have no idea the exact temps but I thought it was something like 450* for a couple hours? I'm not sure if that is dependent on type of steel?
I really want one of those Hot Shot ovens but that's a whole investment, but would open doors that are not available via a toaster oven. Honestly annealing would be more useful to me now that tempering/hardening anyway. Make a Pop Tart and anneal a work piece? Sign me up!
Click to expand...
You will need about 1550-1600 deg F soak through for A2, then cool at 40 F/ hr to 1000 F and you can cool it by leaving in the oven with door open to cool normally. So no, a toaster oven will not even come close. You can get temper it at 400-500 so it is useful for tooling. If you can find an old garage sale with a ceramic kiln for sale, you can do some fair hobby shop heat treating, of crucible steels.
CH
 
Winegrower said:
I bought an eBay heat treating oven that was inoperative, for peanuts, and sure enough the fault was in the controls. I took them out, and used an inexpensive PID controller and solid state relay, works directly on the AC line. While I didn't use it for heat treating, it made an excellent oven. Temperature stability was OK, maybe +- a half degree C.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can get very affordable PID controllers and SSRs these days. Makes it easy to build up a temperature controlled system. I have one hooked up to a slow cooker whose built-in controller failed. I use it for sous vide cooking, among other things.
 
Off topic a bit, but a bit like homebrewed mentioned, these controllers have a lot of uses. I put a 60 watt bulb (remember those?) in an ice chest and controlled the temperature precisely for brewing kombucha.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top