We design a high temperature oven for measuring the saturation intensity of the transition line $4f^ 6/6s^{2 7}7F_0 ↔ 4f^6/6s6p $^1$P(J = 1)$</TEX> of the samarium atom. We first constructed a high temperature oven to generate the samarium vapor column and study the thermal characteristics of the oven. The oven is able to operate at a temperature up to about 1400 $^{circ}C$ and the operation is tested by using several metals with high melting points. We describe two wave mixing experiment with the samarium vapor generated in the high temperature oven and obtain the saturation intensity by analyzing the first diffraction signal.