[TheForge] Re: Slack tank

[Mike Spencer]

Mark Williams  wrote:

> While my shop gets cold enough to freeze water and then some, I just
> let my slack tub freeze. I've got a stainless steel former beer keg
> with the top cut out as a slack tub.

My slack tub is half a ca. 25 gal hot water tank, split the long way
(i.e. a hemi-cylinder, so freezing doesn't burst it.)  I have a CalRod
water heater element sticking down from a stainless bridge that I
plunk in place when the first signs of freezing up appear.  Then I
just let it freeze up with the heater in the ice.  When the tank is
frozen solid, plugging the heater in has enough melted in half an hour
to be usable for most work. Typically, there's an half an inch of ice
all around unfrozen water and the heater gets it usable even faster.

No thermostat. I don't like to leave electric stuff running unattended
if it isn't necessary anyhow.

We're not that cold yet here. Chilly tonight so muddy ground has
frozen up.  Probably before the end of the year, it'll stay cold all
day and I'll be using the heater.  Pretty slack weather here. The
January cold snap is a few nights at 0F.  Not like New England where
20 below for a week or two is ho-hum or (shudder) Alaska where I hear
they have to put an electric heater in their volcano to keep it
working for the winter tourists.


FWIW,
- Mike