Found an old kiln. Useful?

So I was cleaning out my girls great grandpas shop (holy crap you wouldnt believe some of what I found), and converting it into a welding/knifemaking shop, and under a gigantic pile of rugs found and old Olympic 2318 Kiln with LT3-K controller. Like this one here: http://www.greatkilns.com/kiln-varieties/electric-kilns/stackable-electric-kilns/2318e.html just way older. Says it will hit up to 2300 degrees and the cotroller asks for the "approximate hours" at that temperature. Is this something that could be modified to do heat treat?

smokeyrojito said:

So I was cleaning out my girls great grandpas shop (holy crap you wouldnt believe some of what I found), and converting it into a welding/knifemaking shop, and under a gigantic pile of rugs found and old Olympic 2318 Kiln with LT3-K controller. Like this one here: http://www.greatkilns.com/kiln-varieties/electric-kilns/stackable-electric-kilns/2318e.html just way older. Says it will hit up to 2300 degrees and the cotroller asks for the "approximate hours" at that temperature. Is this something that could be modified to do heat treat?

Click to expand...

To clarify, that is the max temperature. I can set the thermostat to whatever I want between 0 and 2300 F. The timer goes from 0 to like 18 hours, but says "approximate time" which kind of scares me.

Just use a timer on your phone to be more accurate. If the thing is even useful that is.

Very useful. Yet may not be ideal for your purpose.. Mainly due to loading and unloading it from the top could be a challenge.
Some steels need to quickly go from full temps around 1500f to below 600f in a few seconds to get full hardness. And with a top load kiln. I can see how that may be a challenge? Dealing with the High Heat.. But if you modify thye lid to allow ya to hang the blade in and easy get the blade out and into quench. This may be a mute point.

I have seen kilns like this used to make a salt pot style HT setup.

Great find me thinks.

I had a chance to get 2 of these for free and passed. Mainly due to their size. And at the time I had even less space then I currently have.

The best use I've ever had for a kiln was pulling out the temp senders and gauges for reuse in my forge....then I sold the kiln for a profit and put that toward a grinder build. Or was it the Evenheat oven? Well, you get the picture.
-Mark