[TheForge] HF IR thermometer <$20!

[Bruce .]

Yeah, mine is a couple years old.  I put a slip of paper over the battery
terminals between uses as I suspect it drains the battery when "off".  Not
sure of that, but the precaution is easy.

I did buy a second one.  One for the kitchen, one for the shop.  Used it
yesterday when preheating 1/4" steel  with a weed burner for welding with
my gutless wonder welder, a HF 90A.   It's amazing how well that little
thing welds pre-heated steel.  Now if the wire feed would work better, I'd
have no trouble at all with it.

As to Jim's comments on accuracy -- that's the thing:  I'm distinguishing
"hot" from "rather hot" from "very hot", all below the incandescent range.
High accuracy isn't what I'm after.  I can buy one of these for the price
of 2-4 Tempil sticks, and it will last at least as long as those.  (I have
thoughts of coming up with low-precision indicators on the Tempil sticks
model --  like using a wooden stick to test for higher temperatures -- but
have got nowhere yet with the idea.)

The weed burner can get parts of the steel up to incandescent.  I freed up
a rusted post vise yesterday using it.  The pivot bolt and nut glowed red
within minutes.  The 1/2"+ "cheeks" eventually glowed a very dull red --
good enough to break the rust between them an the mobile jaw.  The vise
came out good, though I had to chase the bolt threads with a triangular
file before I could put it back together.

Bruce
NJ