Heating element advice for home built HT oven

[Dr.O]

So, I've got everything I need for an electric ht oven except for the kanthal element.

Size aside, would this element be sufficient for our cause?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Forging-Pot...848?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item51b51a6cc0

I plan on covering it in ITC-213, but am curious if I'm looking in the wrong direction as far as the element itself.

I plan on a long skinny type oven for a single blade that will be built around the element.

Since I'm already building the oven, I figure building it around an element would be a wise move.

Should I look elsewhere?

 

[timgunn1962]

I'd say look elsewhere.

I built my first few HT ovens using elements from an ebay seller in Portland, Oregon. 16 AWG (1.29mm) Kanthal A1 wound to about .380" coil OD (I routed a 10mm groove). They worked pretty well at a hobby level, but one of the guys (a full-time maker of kitchen knives) using one of the ovens had a couple of elements fail as a result of heavy use at Stainless temperatures. The element connections got a rethink and I looked around for thicker Kanthal wire.

The ebay seller had dropped off the radar a while back, so my latest build uses 1.6mm (about 14 AWG) elements sourced from a local supplier of kiln equipment. This was as thick as I could go whilst still fitting in the grooves of my previous ovens, as I wanted to be able to keep spare elements on the shelf.

I certainly would not go under 16 Ga (AWG) and if your oven design is big enough to use thicker, I'd say go thicker.

I bought a few of the Far-Eastern ebay elements with a view to making a quick and dirty low-cost small HT oven for Carbon steels only as they seemed too cheap not to. I've not actually used them because in the hand they just don't seem worth the effort. They are really thin and seem to be cut from a continuous coil, leaving no connection "tails". I am pretty sure that once I straighten out the ends enough to be able to make the connections, they will burn out almost immediately, based on what I've seen with the thicker elements.