Our search for a new oven. Why doesn't the USA make quality appliances anymore?

:-) :-)

OK, so I gave the cabinet work a bunch of thought before doing anything. Then I started the project the other day. I may not be fast, but I do good work. The reason I took so long to get started was because I dislike modifying something. I'd much rather start from scratch. The hole is waiting for the oven to arrive at this point. I still need to do some cosmetic work, but that should be complete tomorrow. We'll get a bit more storage after the installation is complete and of course a working oven. I'm beginning to miss having one indoors. I'm really getting antsy for it to arrive, but it could take 2 more weeks according to the first delivery estimate that we got when we ordered it. It'll be here when it gets here and not a moment sooner.

Edit:
BTW, this trashing of our 7 year old oven couldn't have come at a worse time. I had all sorts of things to do to prepare for winter and lots of those things have yet to be done. But we also need to eat, and I miss my fresh bread. I can hire the undone things, or many of them, done by others, it just galls me to do that, but I only have 24 hours in a day and I'm only one person. But the cabinetry I wanted done right and I couldn't imagine what someone would charge to modify existing cabinetry rather than to just tear out the old and put in new. Then the new would need to match or forever be an eyesore. In Maine lots of folks think they are carpenters simply because they own a hammer. I've mistakenly hired some of those folks in the past, and also others who actually knew what they were doing. I didn't want to roll the dice this time. I wanted it done right; hence me getting involved. I can make fine furniture, but I don't normally do the sort of work I did on the cabinets. I'm a perfectionist (good for fine furniture, not so good here) and this was anything but that sort of precision work. I had to tell myself that it just needed to be within spec' and certain things would be hidden from the eye. You either understand or you don't. :-)

Brian, it sounds like you're having fun. I know what you mean about getting the job done right and bringing the correct level of fit and finish to suit the job. Although I haven't worked in the trade in many years back in the late 70s early 80s I apprenticed and got my journeyman carpenter's ticket. Massive economic downturn sent me back to school as an economic refugee. As an apprentice I well recall the words of an old carpenter I worked with on some light commercial projects, schools, churches that sort of thing..."you're not building a piano so get moving" - the point was you bring the level of craftsmanship the job required be it furniture, cabinets, framing or concrete forming. At the end of the day you're trying to do good work at a fair price and make a little money. If you treat every job like its a work of art you'll soon be out of business. Now when you're doing your own projects you have the luxury of taking as long as you like and using whatever high end materials you want but you still have to be practical and use your common sense. An example of appropriate effort for the job is a few years back we hired a painter to do some interior painting that required painting up high - the painter didn't use a scaffold to cut in at the top of the wall, he used a paint brush on a stick. If you go up on a ladder and look closely at the job he did cutting in its so so but from the floor where everybody stands it looks perfect. Thats how it should be, why should he spend hours of my money perfecting something nobody is going to see and why should I pay for that?
Mark

Yes, a professional carpenter would have knocked the job out in a day.

I don't know if I'm having fun, but it is getting done and I know that it's done right. So much in this place wasn't done right and it gets repaired years later by me after it fails.

Case in point... an electric hot water heater and the electric oven, both 220v. Shut off either one and we still had 110v going to each. What the electrician did was to wire up each one to 1/2 of the others double breaker. It caused problems until I figured out what was going on and rewired the box. The problem? I drained the hot water tank as one is supposed to do for regular maintenance. I shut off the breaker and burned out a heating element anyway. Now I ALWAYS put a meter to the wiring to double check if things are actually at a zero energy state. I always did and do that anyway if working on wiring. I just had to expand my scope when flipping breakers off.

Brian, you are wise indeed, that wiring configuration could have killed you if you proceeded under the misapprehension that you'd de-energized the circuit and then jumped right in. You've heard that there's old electricians and there's dumb electricians but there are no old, dumb electricians.
Mark

The new oven was installed yesterday and we washed the insulation fibers off of the surfaces we could get to and did a burn off of manufacturing oils and such for 1 1/2 hours at 450°F and 500° . Then last night I did it again at 500 for an hour to make sure. I want to make bread tomorrow and I don't want to eat oil smoke.

It has a very interesting broiler. One that I've never seen before. It has a sort of flat screen built into the roof of the oven. Blue Star calls it an "infrared broiler". In operation it sort of glows blueish. Man does it ever put out the heat though! I suspect it uses a palladium or platinum screen and works something like a catalytic converter on a car exhaust, but that's just speculation. wanted to test it on toast and in seconds, maybe 10, the toast was beginning to char. Now I'm not one for doing much broiling, but I have plans for this broiler and Sous Vide cooking. I hope my idea works.

My mods on the cabinet worked and the unit slid in as though it was built for it. A very seamless installation.

Update: The other day the oven ran for over 8 hours in both normal mode and "convection" (fan) mode with zero problems. I've used it for shorter times with no problems. W haven't had it long enough to tell for a certainty yet, but it appears to be what I was looking for. If it's a lemon I'll update this, but I don't think that it will be.

Another thread made me realize that I didn't finish this thread with pix. I'll fix that.

Here is the oven installed. It's been in use for many months and it's everything the other replaced oven wasn't. What crap it was! I'm a very happy baker now!
[Image: ef87e5b2-4ef1-4208-9201-4bd9b2a00953_zpsvq7yy9on.jpg]

Yes, it easily does my broiling to finish sous vide steaks and such. I did that twice, but I don't really want to clean the oven so I only use the broiler for finishing things that don't "spit".