I have a new progressive reloading press (a Dillon XL650), which has an automatic alarm device to tell you when the powder hopper is getting low. It's basically a weighted piston that rides on top of the powder, and when it gets down far enough, a knob on top hits a switch & the alarm goes off. I'd like to store the thing in the hopper, but there's no off switch.
I can easily make a small block (~ 3/4" cube) with a notch cut in it that will hold the knob up high enough to miss the switch. However, I'd like to make it highly visible as a reminder to remove it before use. I could dangle a red tag off of it, but making it out of something like bright red or yellow plastic would work OK. The catch is that I don't have any eye catching colorful plastic in suitable blocks.
I checked McMaster Carr, and they have red Turcite in 1" rods ($$$, and I'm not sure how red it is), red acrylic in sheets only, and the yellow they have is Kevlar, which isn't a good screaming yellow, and could be nasty to machine.
There are lots of options, from cutting up a small red aerosol can cap, to paint or tape on any miscellaneous plastic. Paint or tape will probably chip or peel over time. I have red & yellow caplugs that I could make a solid core for, or I could find a piece of bright plastic to use as a "flag" on a more boring colored plug. Nothing I've come up with so far has set off my "tidy & effective solution" detector.
This is hardly a major project of any great import, but if anyone has any ideas they'd like to suggest, I'd be happy to add them to the options collection.
Thanks!
Doug White