Heat box inclosure

B

Busbee Cue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hello,

I want to make a heating box for finishing cues on a Taig
based lathe and I am looking for some opinions on what
to use as the heating source.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 
Heat lamp light bulbs should do the trick. Especially if you line the inside with the foil reflective insulation
 
Busbee Cue said:
Hello,

I want to make a heating box for finishing cues on a Taig
based lathe and I am looking for some opinions on what
to use as the heating source.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

What type of clear coat are you wanting to heat?

Jim.
 
Over heating cues will often cause bubbles.
If I just wanted to keep it from being cold I would drill a bunch of holes in the mounting board under the enclosed box. And drill a lesser amount of holes in the lower part of the box for exhaust. Then I would put a few regular light bulbs underneath in an enclosed box. This will keep your finish warm enough to cure in your cold climate without heating the whole shop all night. If you are wanting to speed dry them then I will let others tell you how to do that.
 
Last edited:
Busbee Cue said:
Hello,

I want to make a heating box for finishing cues on a Taig
based lathe and I am looking for some opinions on what
to use as the heating source.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I built an heated over box when I was spraying cues in my pool hall that I also used for my epoxy substrate curing concerning bubbles at temps lower than 70 degrees. Chris make a very good point about bubbles at low temp curing.

My pool hall was 11000 sq ft and I could not keep the heat over 60 degrees at night in the winter for cost reasons.

I built my box out of MDF wood and installed two light bulb fixtures inside at the top of the box and the box fit over my wood lathe and was 36" long, 8" wide and 22" tall.

I used 2 100 watt bulbs and found in that confined space it made the temp in the box very hot. I had a thermometer installed but I forgot the temps. I reduce to two sixty watt bulbs and installed a small adjustable vent valve on top and was able to maintain between 70 to 90 degrees with that set up as it was tunable compared to the ambient temp of the room which got as low as 55 degrees in the winter at night in that back room.

I still use a light bulb heat system in my spray booth today and in a confined space it does not take as much watts as you might think.

Good Luck,

Rick
 
If you want to keep a constant temp, I use 2 60 watt lamps continuous and 2 60 watt lamps that are hooked to a cheap thermostat from home depot. just set it using a digital thermometer. I have an on/off switch that feeds a timer that then feeds all power to the box and an on/off switch for the turning spindles and the exhaust fan. I set it to the amount of time I want it to run and it all goes automatically.
Dave
 
Portable air heater with a thermostat is what I like.
Set it inside the box with air not directly blowing on the woods.
On really dry winter nights , a wet rag might be needed to dampen
the air.
85 degrees is plenty .
 
Helped a golf club maker design/build one for curing epoxy. We put in a string of Christmas lights. You can add/subract 7 watts at a time to control the temp (put in 2 strings if too cool with one full string), spread out the heat source over some distance, and they are very cheeeeeeep to boot :thumbup: .... pretty too

Dave
 
JoeyInCali said:
Portable air heater with a thermostat is what I like.
Set it inside the box with air not directly blowing on the woods.
On really dry winter nights , a wet rag might be needed to dampen
the air.
85 degrees is plenty .
Click to expand...

I found that if you don't keep your box TOTALLY clean of everything, a small space heater like you describe, will blow shit around and it will get in your finish. Heat with out forced air is the best way, IMO. My basement during the winter gets around 60-65 at best, so heat is a must in the box. The lamp based one that I use makes it a comfy 82-85 degrees constant with no blowing air, only the exhaust fan used for fumes. I have a filter on the front door so the air intake is filtered before the air can enter the finish area. Any air based heater will just stir up dust of all types, unless you thoroughly vacuum the box and have a recirculating filtration setup going.
Dave
 
Thanks for all the private messages and input on the forum, it is greatly
Appreciated. I got some great information from many of you.

Thank you
 
Instead of incandescent light bulbs, I use a 20 watt double tube fluorescent light fixture in the bottom of my (horizontal) box. I found the regular light bulbs to be too much of a point source whereas the fluorescents distribute heat in a more even, linear fashion under the turning wood.
My 2 cents,
Gary
 
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