Keeping a lathe and mill warm over winter?

Google "golden rod"

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

That's an excellent suggestion Another possibility would be the magnetic block heaters made for car & truck engines. Stick one to the bottom of the cabinet.

Rex B

what about a deep fat fryer with some kind of oil in it? crock pot with wax in it set to the warm setting.

Don't know how much it would cost, but how about a block heater for a diedel engine? Every Ford diesel (and I suspect other brands, also)has one. They plug into a 110v outlet.

They are also submerged in the coolant so they don't burn up.

Yeah, so that would work fine in the chicken waterer, right?

Same thing for a 240 volt heater. run it on 120 volts, gives 1/4 the wattage and a MUCH lower surface temp. I was looking at using a 2' long,

Just remember that halogen lamps depend on running at a specific operating temperature for their longevity--there's a chemical cycle going in the lamp that redeposits the metal sputtered off the filament back onto it. Put them on a dimmer and they run too cool for that cycle to work, so their life is actually shortened by dimming.

Only to a very rough approximation. P=V^2/R and tungsten's resistance is highly temperature dependent. For example, if at half voltage the filament runs at 1200K (1700F), it's resistance will be approx 1/2 of the resisistance at normal operating temperature and it'll run at 1/2 of rated wattage.

Ned Simmons

Put a light bulb in the welder. Go to a farm supply store for the poultry waterer heater.

Pete Stanaitis

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Gary Brady wrote:

Yep, the humidity in a closed shop must be a killer. I'm fortunate I'll only need extra heat when I'm actually working and don't need to run it at night.

dennis in nca

I did go to a farm supply store. Did not find anything that would work. These heaters are more for other design waterers. It's too long to explain.

No, not quite. Two bulbs in series do run each at half voltage, but because their resistance is so much lower at 'barely warm' temperature, the total current will be almost what it would be with one at full temp. Thus, the power dissipation will be quite a lot higher than 1/4.

LLoyd

My garage is detached; if it were attached I'd plumb another water line from the furnace and give the machines each an nice little hot water radiator.

I don't think I'm ready for my wife's eyebrows to hit the stratosphere over this idea, though.

Thanks! Pete

Thanks, I've oiled all surfaces but the humidity still reaches some I can't get to. More so than woodworking tools, these machines depend on precision sliding surfaces.

I do wax my woodworking tools, whether in the house or in the garage, though.

Pete

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 09:34:45 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Pete Bergstrom quickly quoth:

Build thin plywood boxes over the machines and put a 60w lamp under each. That should keep things toasty enough. It's enough to keep all your paints from freezing. Even cardboard might do it if you like that lovely "homeless" look in your shop.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." --Mahatma Gandhi - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Make it step 1 of a solar or deep ground natural heater to pre-heat... Don't have the whole plan - just step 1. :-)

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Pete Bergstrom wrote: