hot plate recommendations

[Land Owner]

Garage sales are good for finding the $2.00, "throw away", Mr. Coffee, or equivalent, makers with busted or missing coffee pots. Hack saw the plastic reservoir off. The remaining "hot plate" is 600w (some are 1000w), decent heat (idk temp), and certainly cheap for pre-heating a mold - but the coffee maker plate will NOT melt lead or lead alloy.

I pre-heat. Before casting set the mold bottom in the liquid alloy for 2-3 minutes. Turn the mold over and do half the time for the spru plate. Then cast. Works for me.

[Dragonheart]

[QUOTE=Land Owner;
I pre-heat. Before casting set the mold bottom in the liquid alloy for 2-3 minutes. Turn the mold over and do half the time for the sprue plate. Then cast. Works for me.[/QUOTE]

I agree, sometimes the old ways are better and for good reasons that new generations failed to learn, until casting results go south and they are trying to figure out why that new mold that started life by casting so well now has excessive block separation lines.

Dipping worked well for me until I started running two & three molds at a time. Then I gave in and purchased a hot plate, but taking temperature readings on the mold blocks and I could see uneven heating, which warps metal. Quality cast iron used in the old H&G molds is not usually a problem, but brass molds can be, which I have a number of.

On my next outing, I found what I believed to be a pretty good solution at a garage sale. I found this SS pot in a $2 for a box of goods. So I made it into an open door oven that will hold up to 3 molds and heats much more evenly.