[Chucksta]

Minor update...

Well, I hate to say it, but the rim I just did, although not what I wanted, grows on you.. It looks funky, and, like I said, the "under 25 crowd" ( my kid's buddies ), say do the other three just like that, just wet sand them before coating them.

Ummm.. no.. LOL.. That's not the look I was going for, so it's not the look I'm going to settle for. Limitations of the oven and timing issues aside, it's obvious that the oven is more than capable of baking the finish properly. It'll just take a bit of guesstimation on the curing time.

I'm going to take a whack at what kind of time is going to be required to get the bare aluminum of a severely neglected rim into pristine enough condition to coat and bake. If it's less than a couple of hours per rim, then that's the plan and it's game on! If, however on the other hand, it's going to be way worse than that, it's going to be rattle can high heat enamel primer ( like you'd use for an engine clock or similar high heat application), and then coat and bake. That will also give me the chance to see if my equipment will properly coat the final layer ( clear coat ) over primer and base coat.

Nice idea about fire brick.. Nice idea about the top element.. Nice idea about hanging the piece from the top of the oven... Trouble is, they are all pretty much exclusive.

If I use the top element, I'll need something to circulate the air in the oven. That means a high temp fan, which I don't have and have no room in the oven for. Years ago, I had an oven pooch out the lower element on Christmas Day, with a turkey in the oven. I switched to "broil".. Let's just say that the result wasn't what I had in mind. Heat rises, and with no forced circulation, Mr. Turkey didn't cook evenly... not even close. Fortunately, I usually just eat the white meat.

If I remove the top element, I'd have more clearance, but lose the ability to run both elements at the same time, which is something I should probably do when I put in something with as much heat load as a rim. Also, removing the top element and hanging the rim, would just transfer the heat imbalance from the radiance of the element from top and bottom to side to side. As I cure the rims "face up", it's the most invisible part of the rim that is ( possibly ) being over heated.

Fire bricks? Hmm .. that does present a couple of possibilities.. Take out the top element for clearance, and put the fire bricks over the bottom element to diffuse the heat, without losing the heating capacity of the element.. might be do- able, but I'll need to measure for total clearance. I've actually been using the top element as a hanging rack for small pieces I've done. It works well, is firmly screwed to the roof of the oven..

I'm going to be too busy to get anymore done for the next couple of days, but I've pretty well cleared off Sunday to have at it again.. pics of a science experiment ( hopefully not gone horribly wrong ) sometime Sunday night / early Monday morning.

Yeah... How hard can it be? Lol..

It hasn't been hard, but it's been educational and fun..

Thanks to all for the suggestions and links and support.

I still wish someone who can, would figure out how to accommodate curing times based on aluminum heat absorption per pound to ambient ( oven ) temperature as a curve.. I could do it with the temp gun as another science experiment, but I would've thought that somewhere, somehow, someone would've already known the answer, or, where to find that info..