Cobbing together a Lubesizer heater; need help

[Patrick L]

I'm in the process of cobbing together a heater for my Ideal # 45. As per discussion on a past thread, I am going the aluminum plate with a household iron route. Any suggestions on what to use for a base plate? The local Metal Mart wants about $15 for a piece of 1/2 " aluminum, but I'm too cheap for that(if I wanted to spend $$ I'd buy a heater.)

Any suggestions on how I can "acquire" a suitable piece of metal ?

[David R]

Piece of a gas grill sitting by the curb? Its aluminum.

David

[Buckshot]

.........Cheapest way I know of is to get out the phone book and check machine shops, metal and scrap metal dealers, or fabrication outfits. What you want to ask for at machine shops, metal dealers and fabrication places is aluminum drops. These are the end pieces or left overs that they usually haul to the scrap dealer.

At the scrap dealer just ask about aluminum. There are a couple local places that are metals dealers and they sell thier drops and leftovers by the pound. Most aluminum is 85 cents a pound this way.

..............Buckshot

[beagle]

Buckshot's right on the source. You should be able to find a machine shop that will whack you off a piece of stock.

Orygun Mark's computer is up and down right now but he's about to get it back up. He'll have some advice to give I expect. Maybe he'll be on tonight.

He's made a dandy little heater with a heating element from McMaster-Carr. It's compact, easy to make and fits the Lyman 45, Lyman 450 and RCBS. Has an indicator light and can be rigged with a thermostat but mine's manual. Heats up in about 10 minutes from start. Dandy little heater for not many bucks.

See what he has to say before you go the iron route./beagle


.........Cheapest way I know of is to get out the phone book and check machine shops, metal and scrap metal dealers, or fabrication outfits. What you want to ask for at machine shops, metal dealers and fabrication places is aluminum drops. These are the end pieces or left overs that they usually haul to the scrap dealer.

At the scrap dealer just ask about aluminum. There are a couple local places that are metals dealers and they sell thier drops and leftovers by the pound. Most aluminum is 85 cents a pound this way.

..............Buckshot

[crazy mark]

Patrick,
I used some cheap end pieces of aluminum to make some heater bases. I then used a round 15-20 watt heater element to heat it up. Matbe $20 of parts involved but the nice part is the element can be changed out if needed. The iron will work but has too much heat. A heater element as small as 5 watts will work but takes longer heating time. Mark

[Ken O]

I'm frugal also, but a couple months ago I picked up the Lyman heater from Midway for $33.95. Its drilled and tapped, and all you got to do is bolt it on and plug it in. I dont own an iron, so I dont think I could beat the price. I just checked the site and I see they are $37.99 now.
Lyman heater (http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=182761)

[Goatlips]

I found a magnetic engine block heater at a garage sale. About the size of a deck of cards with a handle in the middle, sticks anywhere on my sizer. Takes a little tending but the price was right.

Goatlips

[Buckshot]

http://www.fototime.com/7E6FBF2009554DB/standard.jpg

The above is a lube-sizer heater I made per Mark's instructions. The aluminum was a piece off a hunk I had around. The heat capsule is a 15W unit. The switch box was like 69 cents and the 110v, 15A lighted switch was a buck ninty eight or such a matter.

No T stat, just on and off. When it's up to heat I turn it off for awile, then flick it back on. The press body casting and the plate have sufficient mass to retian the heat for quite some time.

..............Buckshot

[Bass Ackward]

Pat,

Don't get hung up on the aluminum. Steel will transfer heat too. Might find that cheaper.

[imashooter2]

You don't need 1/2 inch thick either. I have my sizer on a piece of .135 cold rolled steel and it transfers heat from an old iron just fine. Draw file the base of the sizer so you get good contact with whatever plate you use.

[BeeMan]

An electric water heater thermostat is cheap and effective. With it, there is no worry about manual temperature control if you step away for a few minutes. I just screwed the T-stat to the 1/2 AL plate, and use a cartridge heater element. Plate was scrap material (extra holes are free [smilie=l: ) and heater and cord were scrounged, so the thermostat was the only cash outlay. I set temp to 90F and am satisfied.

BeeMan

[45 2.1]

An electric water heater thermostat is cheap and effective. With it, there is no worry about manual temperature control if you step away for a few minutes. I just screwed the T-stat to the 1/2 AL plate, and use a cartridge heater element. Plate was scrap material (extra holes are free [smilie=l: ) and heater and cord were scrounged, so the thermostat was the only cash outlay. I set temp to 90F and am satisfied.

BeeMan

I have aluminum plate and the t-stats from a water heater. From the above, a 15 watt cartridge heater is what to get, but where. A little help with the wiring sequence, layout and where to get a cartridge heater would help. Anyone?

[crazy mark]

www.mcmastercarr.com. cartridge heaters but I can't remember the page #. Mark

[45 2.1]

Page 454, but lists them as 20 watts up. This the right thing?

[Patrick L]

I apologize for my ignorance, but what exactly is a cartridge heater ?

I mean I looked them up on the above link, but I don't know what they are originally intended for. Locally, am I talking auto parts store, plumbing supply store, or what ?

[crazy mark]

That's the page but they don't have the lower wattage ones they had one year ago. You could use a resister to lower the wattage. A cartridge heater is a round heating element that usually fits into a hole or is strapped down to something. Mark

[Buckshot]

...............The cartridge heaters will be listed by their current draw in watts, length and OD. A higher wattage heater isn't going to be a big deal. Like going from the 15w I used to a 20, or 25w unit. It will merely get hotter faster.

And no, you don't have to use 1/2" aluminum. However there are tradeoffs. I think the heater I used was 3/16" OD. If you were to use that in a 1/4" piece of steel/alum/cast iron you would loose a bunch of heat because a large portion of the heater would have such a thin section of metal surrounding it. Also the cross section of a 1/4" plate is small enought to be fairly restrictive to the flow of heat, ie: it would disipate rapidly.

Conversly, if you happened to have a big ole 1" thick hunk of cast iron you'd have to have a bunch of the heaters in it to get it up to heat before the 2nd Coming. It's just that 1/2" is a nice number, and aluminum is usually easy to get, easy to cut and otherwise deal with. If you can get 5/8, 9/16 or heck 33/64" go for it.

So far as wiring goes it's simple. The cartridges have 2 unmarked wires. One is for the black power lead (hot) and one is for the white (neutral). Doesn't matter which goes to what. If your power cord has a green (ground) wire, just ground it to the plate or switch box if it's metal. For a switch a 29 cent light switch is great.

As to what they're intended use is, I have no idea. They're really just tiny versions of the exact thing that's in an electric water heater. I'd imagine they were used for pretty much what we're using them for. To warm metal surfaces that liquids flow over or are contained in. Maybe arc rod dryers, block heaters, aquarium heaters, etc & etc.

................Buckshot