Log of wax sculptor wannabe : The Silence of the LamP

For the pass few days I didn't do much on wax, instead, i am making a "one point silent wax warmer" that will focus the heat to warm up small part of the wax.

Those who know me, knew that i can't withstand high frequency noise, a heat gun is quite annoiying for me, yet, i can live with that, just, not in the midle of the night when everyone has make their trip to dreamland. So i figure, maybe a silent heat gun can be used in the night, and here we go.

I have plenty of computer fans from my old dead pc, i take out two, and dig out the old "AC to DC converter" with multiple voltage range. This two use 12V. I made a fixture to hold the lamp holder so it "float" on top of the fan. Epoxy putty work perfectly for this. The bulb is 100W, attached to an on-cord dimmer.

As you can see, the cover is just a thick plastic bottle. I cover the inner part of bottle with the tin(or aluminium?) foil which come with sticker back. This will bounce the heat along the inner wall of bottle, and keep the bottle slidely cooler.

Here is what it looks like when put together. Observe the bottle neck, it is from another plastic part i fix together using epoxy putty. This bottle neck can be detached incase i want a wider area of wax to get warmed. And another cone shape can be added to the tip of the bottle neck to further focus the heat. Because i can't wait, the detachable bottlebottle neck is not cover with foil. attaching the cover to the fan is easy.



and Jonestation said, Let there be LIGHT" - by switching on the dimmer switch. I get 45°C.

dimmer in action : i got 55°C (2 minutes)

When go full force i get 65°C (in 1 minute) and still increasing.

So, the wax get warm up on a focused point, and the device is compact and silent. Objective met! However there is a few draw back of this fella that need to be improved.

1. fan speed can not be controled.
2. heat reach the small tip too slow, and the shape of the bottle itself is not helping in pushing the hot air up. Instead, some air is "blackflow" from the bottom of the fan.

3. Fan and bulb using separate cable, which making the temperature control a bit trouble some.

4. the name is mega-lame :-D