**Bad oven door seal.**

The seal around the inside of the oven door keeps hot air in the oven.  Seals can wear out. If the seal is bad, hot hair leaks out of the oven and heats up the front of the range.  Dials can get too hot to touch.

Working on an oven yourself can be a little sketchy but replacing the braided seal on the interior of the oven door is not such a big deal.  If you do a bad job, the worst thing that can happen is hot air leaks out of the door and you are used to that.  

Do I need to say you need to replace the seal with a purpose built oven seal strip?  Because other stuff might melt or cause a fire?   Like that stuff you have in the garage you were thinking about using because you have it, and you are cheap?    There, I said it.   I too am cheap and I think that way.  But replace the door seal strip with a seal made for your oven.