fired up my boil tube last night to try it out.


First test went well. Obviously the settings for the thermocouple need tweaked. I get a nice roaring boil, but because the element is pulsing it doesn't boil over the tube. Went from room temp to boil in about 15 minutes. The element is a 120v 1500W water heater element (shorty). Definitely a bit over powered. The solid state relay heated up pretty good. While the element was continuously on during heat up, the temp of the enclosure underneath it topped off at ~160F. Not too hot to touch, but don't leave your finger on it. Once it got to the set point and started pulsing, it immediately cooled down and stayed at ~90F while it held station.

At some point, I plan to build a bluing rig with a boil tube and cleaning tube - a 15 minute dip in brownell's 909 sure beats getting yelled at for scrubbing a barrel in the kitchen sink!. Heck, I can even do a second boil tube for parking. Cartridge heaters are pretty cheap. I'm thinking two 800w cartridge heaters for the boil tubes, and a 500w cartridge heater for the 909, and it should all fit on the same 20amp circuit.

This will do for now though. I suppose I'll do a big how-to thread when I build the rig. I've got a backlog of barrels and magazine tubes to do. I'm tempted to pause this, build it, and clear the backlog in a weekend.