Heated Press Question - Newbie's First Post

[rjl72493]

First of all, this site and all of the projects are way cool. Thanks for all the info from all of you.

Now, I see people going to all kinds of trouble to heat up their presses. If it changes the way the epoxy cures for the better, it makes sense. But is there any reason that the actual press itself had to be heated. What if I just made a big, heated box that warmed to 130F (or whatever) and wheeled the whole press into it?

Is there any reason that would not work?

[hansonc]

I'm sure it's technically possible but you'd want to account for the heat transfer capabilities of the materials used in your press.

You could probably get around the problem by pre-heating the materials and building it fast before it cools or building it even faster in the "hot box" before either the epoxy sets up on you or you personally overheat.

[Yuki_otoko]

Ive seen this done where a guy makes a plane (real ones not rc). For most parts he made a covered frame to place over the part and an electric space heater was used to heat it. Because the part was kept off the ground by quite a bit, the heat rose to the part, while the heaters were down low where it was cooler and not setting the thermal cut-out swith off. The whole thing was controlled by a simple thermostat switch.

He also did excatly as hansonc mentions. He preheated the moulds, stand and everthing inside the box first.

[rjl72493]

Ive seen this done where a guy makes a plane (real ones not rc). For most parts he made a covered frame to place over the part and an electric space heater was used to heat it. Because the part was kept off the ground by quite a bit, the heat rose to the part, while the heaters were down low where it was cooler and not setting the thermal cut-out swith off. The whole thing was controlled by a simple thermostat switch.

He also did excatly as hansonc mentions. He preheated the moulds, stand and everthing inside the box first.

That's exactly what I have in mind. My ski hotbox works precisely that way. I wonder if the wood parts in the frame might dry out over time, but, then again, the reason I want to cheap this out as much as possible is that I don't exactly anticipate pressing more than a couple of pairs of skis.

[knightsofnii]

i'm gonna use my busted heat blanket (where half the width still works fine) to place over the cat track bars to heat them up, to reduce the heat being pulled out of the system, should get the top of my board heated faster and reduce concavity