Sylvania hot plate question

[jcameron996]

I just bought a 1100 watt sylvania hot plate on sale at walgreens. My intention is to use it to make some 45/45/10 lube. I was just wondering if this hot plate would get hot enough to melt lead as well. Thought it might be handy for small jobs. Thanks.

[HangFireW8]

Mine will melt lead alloys but can't handle nearly pure lead. Yours may do better (or worse).

I use it to preheat alloy ingots before putting them into the pot. That way, I get a nearly instant melt and can quickly flux and stir and get back to business. I also use it to preheat molds. Sometimes the two activities get in the way of each other. I am thinking of getting another.

[44man]

Hot plates have a thermal fuse in the guts. If it gets too hot, the fuse will blow.

[DrCaveman]

I used a similar hot plate when I was 'trying out' bullet casting. It was pretty slow, using a cast iron saucepan, but got the job done. I was able to 'ladle pour' out the edge into my mould, and just had to set it back on the heat between pours.

If you like casting boolits, a dedicated furnace (lee 20 lb pot $60) will serve you much better, then you still have the hot plate for smelting and mould pre-heating.

I still use mine every session, either for the above mentioned uses or melting lube. Great purchase handy tool.

[Guesser]

I have been using a 1500 watt hot plate that I bought in the Navy Exchange in Pearl Harbor back in 1977. I put my old style Ideal cast iron 10# pot on it and melt and mix small batches of alloy. It melts lead quite well, not as fast as alloy, as stated above. I rigged up a crane and hook to dump it into my bottom pour, that way only clean, pre-mixed alloy gets in my bottom pour. Never faltered. I do take the hot plate apart and inspect every so often. I have replaced wiring that had brittle insulation from running at 100% all the time. I would never go with less than 1500 W.

[rintinglen]

The only fly in the ointment can be when the 1500 watt hot plate and the 1100 watt lead pot and the 75 watt radio and the 150 watts of light bulbsand an old refridgerator of unkown wattage get together to pop the 15 amp breaker on the garage.
Disadvantage number 11 in a continuing series of why not to buy an old home...

[DrCaveman]

Excellent point by rintiglen. At least he can go surfing when it's hot!
I try to avoid putting two heat sources on the same breaker circuit. A typical 15-20 amp circuit will only handle 2000 watts at one time, although I have exceeded this many many times as I am sure many others here have.

Distributing the load among available circuits also takes it easy on in-wall wiring and the devices being powered. And if one circuit goes down, you still have the other as a backup. I run an extension cord from my back porch as backup, I have a detached garage with its own 50 amp service. Prob good idea to find a circuit totally separate from your garage and use it as backup.

[edler7]

I just bought a 1100 watt sylvania hot plate on sale at walgreens.

I have the same hotplate. With a 1/4 inch slab of aluminum on top of it, it will melt a 1 pound WW ingot when set on medium heat. Don't ask me how I know...

[Bret4207]

I've been using a Walmart hotplate, I believe 1100 watts, to melt for years. My pot is a SS measuring cup that holds over 40 lbs of alloy. It's more than hot enough, but, it's the open coil type. If yours is the "smooth top" shielded coil type it may not get hot enough. I bought a 2nd HP with the smooth top and it doesn't get hot enough even though it's supposed to be 1500 watts.