Goofy Project #5049: the Duct Tape Phase at Last!

In my last post about this project, I mentioned I had to build an oven.  I've never built an oven before, so hopefully this thing won't burst into flames once I plug it in.  I suppose we'll see.

Unlike other folks who build ovens for this sort of application, I decided I needed to make mine out of steel.  Unlike other people who make things out of steel, I have very limited metalworking skills.  More specifically, my metalworking qualification level is what professionals refer to as "dangerous." 

To mitigate the potential danger, I enlisted the help of my uncle Mike again.  Here's a shot of him demonstrating his proficiency at the metal shear:



This is me braking things:

I wasn't quite as angry as I looked.

Once I had the inner and outer boxes of the oven, Matt and I coated the inside with high-heat paint:



While waiting for the paint to dry, we flipped the inner box over and I laid out the pattern for the heating elements:


Because I was getting a bit loopy on sleep deprivation and paint fumes, I had Matt do the calculations for the lengths of the heating elements:


Once we were happy with the plan, we mounted insulated posts into the oven for the mounting of the nichrome wire heating elements:


While we were making slow progress on the oven making, Don was doing some refinements on a few of the other items that will be consumed by Project #5049:


Once everyone else had left, my sister stopped by to feed me (since I can't be trusted to feed myself) and a few minutes later Alex stopped by dressed for the Duct Tape Phase:


In short order he looked even less normal:


After cutting all of his clothes off (including the duct tape) Alex was able to put his own clothes back on and it was time to close up the seams on the duct tape duplicate:


At that point, it was pushing midnight and I needed to go find somewhere to collapse.  Once I was fully rested and reventilated, it was time to head back to the workshop and stuff the double:


Since I was making good progress on that portion of the project, I figured I should get a good start on all of the knives I was going to need.  Since I had a pair of decent knives to start with, I made up some quick clay mold walls to pour silicone into:


Then I poured silicone in:


This morning I went ahead an pulled a couple of test casts:

Great success!

I still can't help but wonder what people might think if they didn't know me and just walked into my workshop:


I don't know about you, but it all makes perfect sense to me.

Stay tuned for the "melting things" phase.  With a bit of luck, you just might get to see my head explode...


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