Post by mtnrabbitDoes anybody know how to make a steam Dewaxer ? or have a link to the
instructions.
I have heard that you can make one by using a pressure cooker ?
Thanks...
You can use a pressure cooker if you wish, but it's overkill. Steam dewaxers
are not pressurized, or at least, don't need to be for normal injection waxes.
When my commercially made dewaxer died, I switched to the simple home brew stove
top version. It's a large kitchen type stainless steel stock pot of a size that
will hold my casting flasks. The only modification is a wire rack that sits in
the bottom a few inches above the bottom. To use it, you put water in the pot
to just under the wire rack. Put your flasks in the pot, vent hole down, put on
the cover, and place on the stove or a hotplate, etc.. Bring to a boil for a
while. A half hour is often enough, but the time needed, same as with a
commercial unit, depends on how many waxes you've got in the flask, size of
flask, etc. The main thing to watch is not to let it boil dry or you burn
wax, making a smelly mess. Also, don't use one of your kitchen pots with the
expectation of ever using it again for food. I suppose it's possible to clean
out the gunky wax residue that will be all over the inside of the pot when
you're done, but frankly, I never quite figured out an easy way to do it.
Most of the wax is removed just by letting the water cool, and the wax freezes
to a film floating on top, easily picked out. But there will still be a good
deal of wax residue on the portions of the pot that are above the water line.
And it was a cheap import quality pot from the hardware store anyway. But
that's all there is to it. The commercial dewaxers are nothing more than a
water reservoir area under a wire rack of some sort, with a heating coil in the
water. They're only closed, not pressure sealed. And the stove top version has
one advantage too. My commercial one died when I forgot about it, and it boiled
dry, letting the heating coil be exposed, whereupon it burned itself out from
over heating. The stock pot version isn't prone to that, as most hot plates and
stoves don't mind running nice and hot with nothing sitting on them... If it
boils dry, the removed wax in the bottom of the pot can burn, but even that
causes no real harm other than smoking up your work area. The flasks could
still go right in the burn out kiln no matter what. And the now darkened pot is
still usable as a dewaxer...
Peter