Oven Tear-Down

I decided to check the oven out tonight. It went pretty well but I should have dug out the 1/4" socket before starting!

The oven was purchased from the Flagstaff Habitat For Humanity Restore, which sells lots of great used household items and building materials. This oven was marked "tested" so I don't have to worry about whether it works. Since I don't need most parts of this for the recycling machine, it needed a bit of tearing down before building it back up.

I got the whole stove assembly off and also removed the controls.

Quite a few steel parts! Hopefully some will come in handy fabricating a control box later. The rest will get recycled.

Thankfully the oven already has fiberglass insulation on four sides- top, sides, and rear. That means I only have to add it to the bottom! Insulation is important not only because I don't want the outside of this getting too hot, but because keeping the heat in will allow it to get up to temp faster and run on less electricity.

The oven will probably be laid on its side for use as a plastic recycling machine. This allows the shaft above the jack to pass cleanly through the oven wall without interfering with the oven's built-in heating element.

Photo: Precious Plastic

Next up for the oven is to check in with my guru Ward Davis, with whom I am doing an independent study course this semester. He will show me how to hook up the controls, and I'll be able to get rid of most of the annoying and now-useless wires up top.

With the drawer removed, I found that the hinge and spring mechanism for the door are hidden below the oven itself. Therefore I may not want to chop everything off, as they essentially did in the prototype. I may use that open space for the control box, mold storage, or some other purpose.

Thanks for reading!