Introduction: Making a Insulated Wood Fired Oven Door.

About: Self employed Stonemason.

Here is an easy way of making an insulated wood fired oven door.
This is made from 100% recycled materials... the screws are second hand (from a car boot sale) but new (count as recycled?)

Materials used to make this:

1x Night store heater, $1 from my local auction site. (provides sheet metal and crematic blanket insulation)
1x single bed head, again $1 from my local auction site. (Provides solid timber for front of door and handles)
+ screws $2 from local car boot sale.

Total price $4

Basic DIY tools required, tin snips, drill, jig saw etc.

Step 1: Cutting and Lining Front Wood Bit.

When you made the front arch of your oven you would have already made the cutout template for the door, this should be almost perfect... but may need a little adjusting, in this case it was good as i used a 3mm layer of MDF over the curve which will leave me with 3mm of a gap around this template.

As we only have 3mm of room to play with and want to make a snug fit, once you have drawn your template onto your wood you want to remove the line when you cut... not leave it... that's about 1mm or more extra if you leave it.

Once you have cut it though, pop it in your oven gap and check and adjust in any spots if you need too.

You also want to cut the breather hole here,
As my flue is 100mm diameter i want to cut the hole the same area so it is ___x___

Next use your new piece of wood as the new template and cut your piece of sheet metal to line the rear of the wood.
Then pop some screws in, as many as you feel necessary.

Step 2: Rear Steel Sheet/ Insulation Casing

Again use your wood for your template, work out how thick you want your insulation to be.
In this case I am using 3 layers of 25mm crematic blanket. The front wood is 20mm thick so I made the gap 75mm making it so the crematic blanket is packed down 20mm (so it is solid).

Once measuring around 75mm I used my ruler as a spacer to make tabs to fold up on the curved side, if you put your ruler at the same measurement at each side on the line of the curve it will leave you with the correct amount to cut out for a 90deg bend.

Once it is all cut out fold them all up, its good to put something on the line where you want to fold it so it bends in the right spot and makes a sharp bend.

Once they are all bent up put your wood in and use a rubber mallet and shape the curve to get them all perfect and following the right shape.

Best to pop it back in to your oven to make sure it's all still going to fit... you will still need about 2mm of clearance around the curve.

Step 3: Putting on Handles

Again using the parts from the bed head, have chopped the wood turned pieces off at the length I want.
Then drilled holes where I want them, also pre-drilled the handles so not to split the wood.
Have used some pretty sturdy large screws laying around for this job.
Whack the screws through and pop some PVA glue on the screw and the bottom of the handles and screw them down till they are snug.

Step 4: Adding Insulation

Again use your wood as a template to cut your crematic blanket.
Then layer it in your casing.

Step 5:

Now its time to screw it all together.
I have cut a sheet of the galvanized sheet metal 75mm wide and started at one end putting it on like a sticker putting a screw in every 2nd tab, then gone back around putting a screw in every tab.
You will need to use counter sink self tapper screws for this and pre-drill for the screw and then the counter sink... you want to get them as flush as possible without drilling to far with the counter sink... the sheet is only 1mm thick so it takes a bit of precision drilling.
Best to have them sticking out a little rather than drilling too far , once they are all in grab your angle grinder and grind off any bits of the screws that are sticking out flush with the metal.

Step 6: Finishing Breather Hole.

Now you want to line the breather hole, you don't want any of the crematic blanket dust getting into the oven and on your food!

I have used some of the pre-bent steel from the heater and just cut it to size and popped them in and screwed them down.

Also on the rear have used some of the steel mesh to stop any sparks for safety.

You could add a damper on the front but i will be making a 2nd thicker door for baking, this is more intended for a firing door.

Step 7: Finishing Your Door.

On the front have given it a final sand to remove fingerprints and any original varnish from the wood,  then given it generous coats of a pine nut oil.

For the rear have given it 2 coats of high temp black paint.

Now leave it to dry over night and then get cooking!

Thanks for viewing my instructable,  constructive criticism welcomed : )