Modify your Hot Plate … Make it Mould Friendly
Are you using a hot plate to pre-heat your moulds? Do you have trouble keeping the single cavity or the double cavity moulds on the plate and not falling off the edge?
They just don’t have enough weight in the mould itself to counterbalance the handles, and when you shove the mould far enough onto the hot plate so they will not fall off, you’re heating the wood handles too…might even scorch the handles like I have before. Look at the picture above, yah…I did that!
The other day I was scrounging through some of my ‘good junk’ for something and saw this old heavy duty bucket bail…the light went on in my head and I had a great ‘brain fart’, aaaahhhh … one that actually worked.
I found a couple spacers to place under the bail to raise it far enough to make it level with or a tad-bit higher than the hot plate coil, made it as high as my skill saw blade that I have covering the red hot coils. This gave me a handle support for the lightweight moulds and now I can avoid heating the handles.
Looking from under the rail you can see how they are supported away from the red hot coils.
It’s a very easy mod that takes only a few minutes, but let me leave you with one word of caution . . .
Open the hot plate cover and determine where the wires are run within the body of the hot plate itself, this will assure you that you will not drill a pilot hole into one of the element or control wires.
There you go fellas, a little ‘tip’ for the day to make your casting even more pleasurable, enjoy yourselves…make a lot of boolits…go shoot’em up & make some more! Have fun, be careful…&…above all…’Watch that 6″ !
charlie
Born in 1950…HS grad, some college, no degrees, served in the US Marine Corps, educated there by the Navy in Electronics. Worked as an Electrician all my life and Contracted Heavy Industrial Control & Power Distribution for 20 years before retirement. Drive a black Chevy 4×4 and a Harley V-Rod. Married 40+ years, 3 great kids all 45 & older. Love my shop & do it all right there…
