Making a heat shield

[rdrcr56]

Has anyone used the old fashioned tin ceiling panels to make a heat shield for their stove? I was thinking of making one for the side and rear of my stove and using the decorative cornice on the sides and top to finish it off, from the little bit I've been looking around the panels can be found in 2x4 sections.

 

[rdrcr56]

Well, second idea, if I made a rear heat shield out of sheet metal, primed and painted it to match the existing wall color would the latex paint be considered a combustible, and would latex even burn?

 

[myzamboni]

Don't paint it. The paint might bubble/'melt' I did mine out of brushed stainless:

 

[begreen]

I painted our old heat shield with white, hi-temp engine paint. There are some barb-b-que paints also, but the palette is limited.

 

[BrotherBart]

Use Stove Bright paint. Tons of colors but it is nasty stuff to shoot being Acetone based.

 

[begreen]

Got that right. Nastiest paint I've ever used. Do not use this indoors!

 

[rdrcr56]

Sounds like that idea wont work, so the next plan is to call some plating outfits and see what they charge to plate the sheet metal a gold colored nickle, bronze, copper etc. If the price is reasonable I would try pounding it out to get a hammered metal look then plate it.

 

[rdrcr56]

This is too much brain damage right now, I think I'll just go split some wood.

 

[webbie]

Of course, you could make it out of copper, or a sandwich of copper and galvanized. They sell 3 x 8 sheets of copper at our local farmer supply (like a building supply).....

You can also buy brushed stainless 24 ga pretty cheap on ebay.

 

[myzamboni]

In case you are intrested, the brushed stainless I have in 24ga and one piece. I had the sheetmetal shop put a breaker-bend for the corner and fold the edges over ~1/2" so I didn't get cut up doing the install. My standoff material is 1" aluminum square stock from Lowe's. We were considering doing machine-turned stainless (the circular brushed pattern), but are glad we didn't as it would have looked way too busy behind the stove.

 

[littlesmokey]

My opinion is sheet copper is a great idea. It can be treated with DIY chemicals to create everything from bronze to verta gre. I think that would be a real different and elegant look. Form the sheet around the durock/ insulator and you won't have to edge.

 

[Gooserider]

As long as you maintain the proper spacing and air gaps top and bottom I don't know of any reason that the tin ceiling panels you mentioned wouldn't work - however you would need to make sure that any material used to join the panels together was also non-combustible. It would probably look pretty good as well.

In terms of painting - theoretically the shield shouldn't get to more than 150* or so, and while latex might take that much heat (and I don't believe it would be considered a combustible) I'm not sure I'd want to chance it. However I'd expect that any paint listed as suitable for BBQ's, stoves, engines, or other moderatelyh high temp applications would probably work fine. The color choice is still limited, but that might widen it up some. It might be worth talking to an auto paint shop to see if they have any other suggestions, or possibly could get you something in a custom color...

Gooserider