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MG MGA - cooking a header

Hello all,

Last summer I painted my new exhaust header with the VHT stuff. The instructions recommend curing the coating at certain temperatures for certain lengths of time. One guy suggested using an old barbque grill. I don't have one handy and am not sure the header would fit. Has anyone found a way to cook large parts? They will not fit in my wife's oven (though I did cook some MGB wire wheels in it.)What have y'all done?
John Greenlee

Never used the product, but what kind of temperatures do you need to heat the part to? If not too high, could you rig up an extension (insulated, of course) to make either your BBQ or kitchen oven bigger? I was thinking of getting into powder coating and might try this myself with a "recycled" oven from the end of someone's driveway.
Derek Nicholson

Derek;
I purchased a powder coating unit from Harbour Freight for I think was around $55.00. I paid $10.00 for an electric stove. It has worked fine for 2 years now.I can just get a TC wheel into it.The oven racks work fine in the high position to hang small parts with "S" hooks.
Sandy
Sandy Sanders

For VHT it says 600-650F for 30-60 minutes.

For a similar product, It says right on the can - at least my very old can - "...baking in an oven or with infrared lamps for 25 minutes at 275F" It obviously does not matter if it gets hotter since it's rated at 1000 to 1600 depending on specific product. Both cans say that it can be self cured in operation on whatever hot thingie it's for.

Curing mostly is good for handling purposes or if the object has areas which will not get hot enough to self cure correctly.

Clearly none of this is critical, so don't worry much. The main thing is that the initial heating should be slow so that you don't cause the solvents to boil off, destroying the film. Not a problem if painted last summer!
I have many times built a box out of stacked insulating firebrick, wrapped it with fiberglass house insulation. If you don't have firebrick, dry cement blocks will do. Put a couple or four of 250W heat lamps shining in there and cover with f'glass , EXCEPT FOR THE SOCKET END OF THE LAMPS. With enough insulation, you can get near enough to 600F. I use this setup for preheat when welding big castings, especially with undercapacity welding equipment. Great for post weld slow cooling too. More permanent and easier heating versions can be made using the elements out of electric ovens in the firebrick box.

FRM
FR Millmore

The guy down the street put a garbage can upside down on top of his BBQ and it seemed to work fine--
FWIW~~~~~~~/ gil
gil

Guys, I'd be careful using mom's oven to cure VHT or powder coated parts. Can't be too good for the turkey or apple pie that goes in next...

G Goeppner

As long as we are improvising.....

How about a 55 gal drum wrapped in fiberglass insulation layed on it's side? Remove both ends of the barrel. Shoot the working end of a kerosene torpedo heater in one end and exhaust out the other. If you want a bit of "warm-and-fuzzy" safety, you can monitor the temp using a barbeque thermometer. This should easily get well above 1,000 degrees I would suspect.

I take no responsibility on this design!

Chuck schaefer

Great ideas.

Is it important to hang the parts from any sort of wires? Or, is it o.k. to lay them down?

Safety fast!

JMG
John Greenlee

It sounds to me like the heat lamps are the easiest solution.
Tom

I am not familiar with the VHT product, but I would think that you would want to have as complete a coating as possible. So, I would suspend the part by bolt holes just like I was painting it.
gil

This thread was discussed between 27/02/2007 and 28/02/2007

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