Casting Thermometer Cost Solved

[Sabaharr]

For those of you that I have seen comment on the cost of a casting thermometer I have found a solution. $30 to $40 or more is more than I wanted to spend so while walking through my local market I stopped off at the grilling supplies section and there I saw a grilling thermometer for $7 that went up to 700°, had a clip on it to attach to the side of a pot, was 10 inches long so could be used in the deepest pot, and it had an arrow on the dial to set where you wanted to settle the temp and could see how close it was at a glance. It has been working great for a few weeks now and I am saving propane by keeping the melt at 650°. Just a thought.
Stephen

[sig2009]

Good to know but I cast over 700 degrees. The Swede Nelson thermometer is worth the money!

[geargnasher]

+1 on Swede's thermometers for casting, the BBQ thermometer would be handy as heck for smelting though, good idea. I'll try to find one of those with the long probe.

Gear

[303Guy]

My multimeter has a temperature input for a k-type thermocouple. Those temp probes are NZ$20 which is about US$15 I think?

[trixter]

For those of you that I have seen comment on the cost of a casting thermometer I have found a solution. $30 to $40 or more is more than I wanted to spend so while walking through my local market I stopped off at the grilling supplies section and there I saw a grilling thermometer for $7 that went up to 700°, had a clip on it to attach to the side of a pot, was 10 inches long so could be used in the deepest pot, and it had an arrow on the dial to set where you wanted to settle the temp and could see how close it was at a glance. It has been working great for a few weeks now and I am saving propane by keeping the melt at 650°. Just a thought.
Stephen


How bout a photo, or brand name, or name of store where you purchased (more details)

Thanks

[RobsTV]

Tel-tru 2 inch Dial 5 inch Stem 200-1000 BPTH, $25 including shipping from BBQ Bonanza works well here. Same quality brand most are selling, but for a little less cash.

[H.Callahan]

If you are going to go $25, throw in an extra buck and get one from NOE!
http://noebulletmolds.com/orders/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=30

[OuchHot!]

Years ago I needed a good pyrometer and bought a fluke. Nowadays, even my cheap home handyman multimeters accept a thermocouple. I have compared them to my fluke and they are very similar in agreement to the fluke.

[dbarnhart]

I guess I'm cheap. I bought a SAMA FP30 lab grade mercury thermometer (20-750F) used from a fellow caster for $5.

[ipijohn]

I calibrate the PID that controls the pot every 6 months or so. Never been off more than one degree.

[MikeS]

It seems that the Tel-Tru thermometers are the most popular ones out there. I have a few of them that I bought a few months ago for something like $12.00 each. I also have some of their smaller thermometers, 1" head, 2" probe that measure from 100-800F and I use these for when I'm preheating my moulds. Most of my moulds have a hole in the sprue plate large enough for the probe (.125") to go thru, so if I'm preheating a 4 cavity mould I'll put 2 of them in the mould so I can make sure the mould is heated evenly. Because only a small portion is actually in the cavity, and the rest is above it, I've found that when they read around 275F or so the mould is ready. I also try and set my hotplate so I can have a mould that's on top of it stay at the 275F temp.

[michael30.06]

Has anyone tried one of those lazer no touch thermometers, they can go up to 850 deg I think

[MikeS]

The lazer thermometers don't seem to work to well with hot lead. I believe it has something to do with the lead being shiny, so not reflecting the temp properly, or something like that.

[ipijohn]

Has anyone tried one of those lazer no touch thermometers, they can go up to 850 deg I think

Mine is only good for +- 5 degrees and I use it only to determine the temp of my molds since they don't do good on reflective surfaces (molten lead).

[Lance Boyle]

i bought straight from Tel Tru myself.

After someone posted about them i did some research online and found a couple other products they made and put it all in an order.

One of the other things I bought was an oven thermometer. Nothing exotic, just the fact that I highly suspected my oven was way the heck off as I was burning half of what I cooked in it unless I was watching it like a hawk. Yep, according to the tel tru oven thermometer I was off well over a 100 degrees when dialed in at 350 on the knob. I'd sooner trust a well regarded US company that makes lab equipment than whatever asian slave prison labor factory that walmart buys their stuff from. Cheap instrumentation can be the cause of frustration not a relief from it. It also didn't hurt that reportedly Tel tru is the maker of the RCBS and Lyman casting thermometers.

The off the shelf 5" Tel tru is good, but if that's all you're getting you may be better off buying the NOE one which is longer IIRC. I get by with the 5" in my pro melt but a little more would be nicer.

[RobsTV]

If you are going to go $25, throw in an extra buck and get one from NOE!
http://noebulletmolds.com/orders/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=30

Sucks that you need to create an account just to see how much shipping will cost.

Then I see it really is not an extra buck, but an extra $6.15 delivered for the exact same brand and model..

$6 might not seem like much, but the savings works out to be around another 2500 180gr 40 S&W bullets for me.

[Lance Boyle]

Oh, my bad, I see the NOE is the same length as the tel tru I bought, I guess it was the RCBS one that was the longer one.