Pickle unit cheap alternatives

Hi Charlotte ! At my night school jewellery class we have our pickel
in a pyrex container inside an old electric frypan. You put a little
water in the bottom of the pan to stop too much heat on the pyrex,
works great !!

Philip from NZ

Charlotte, go to the Salvation Army store or a garage sale or a
rummage sale and look for a crockpot with a ceramic liner and use
that. OR, at the same sources, buy a Corningware or other brand
heatable glass cakepan (etc.) or glass electric frypan and use that.
With the cakepan, you’ll also have to buy something to heat with –
perhaps a hostess tray or an electric hotplate. Just make sure these
heat sources have dials so that you can set them to heat very gently.
You never want to boil the pickle.

The advantage of the cakepan or frypan is that they’ll hold larger
items (like bracelet blanks). The disadvantage can be that they may
not have covers (to keep the heat in and to keep the pickle from
evaporating in between times).

Have fun!
Judy Bjorkman

Also, as I stated previously, one could use their ultrasonic to
remove the “crust” and etc. from a piece. Very quickly I might add.
The ultrasonic should be hot also but it works fine!

Good luck,
Steve

Hi Charlotte,

I use a mini crock pot. Mine was about $20 from Rio Grande, but they
can be found in places that sell regular crock pots. I’ve had mine
for about 5 years.

best,
Kimberly Nogueira
www.florencegirl.etsy.com

The pickle setup I use is cheap, easy and best of all non-toxic. Alum
is readily available at most pharmacies and pickles silver and gold
wonderfully and quickly. It is also used to make pickles crispy and
those little sticks you dab shaving nicks and cuts with. It so safe
you can get it all over your hands no problem and there are no
noxious fumes. To store and keep warm I use a little gravy crock-pot.
The one I use was found at the local hardware store for 10 or so
bucks.

I simply put about 3 heaping tablespoons in to some boiling hot
water, plugit in and I have hot pickle any time I need it.

The alum is also recyclable. When the water in the solution has
evaporated off the alum will re-crystalize. The green ones are
played out and can be thrown away and the white ones are ready for
more boiling water to pickle with again.

The whole setup cost me $13 and has been tried and true for 6 years.
Hope this helps, Eclipse

Judith,

I have to concur that I really like the citric acid pickle. I just
mixed a fresh brew and as long as it is very warm (I use a pint size
crock pot) and it works great!

Monica
www.deliasdelightjewelry.com

Hi there

Another low cost soloution is to get a non-coroding container (lined
metal, glass, plastic) that has a lid, make a little stand for it out
of whatever is handy and then mount a light bulb under it as a heat
source. I do this when I am making things too big to fit in my
standard pickle pot. Use the bulb’s wattage to control the temp, 40W
would more than run a litre or two of pickle. You can make these
quite sofiticated if you feel so inclined, or as primitve as you like
(I got the idea from “Silversmithing” a book whose authors I have
forgotten the names of, who make up a lead container propped on metal
and wood, supported on sand. My version is an old beer brewing
plastic container propped on a big coil of binding wire) Obvioulsy,
using energy saving bulbs would not work…

CP
www.collarsandcuffs.co.uk

My solution is really low-tech. I don’t need to pickle often enough
to keep a crock pot full of acid around 24/7, and I really don’t
have a good spot for one anyway. So when I do need to pickle, I head
to the kitchen. I keep a Nalgene bottle of PH DOWN there, and I just
pour some into one of two Pyrex dishes I have, cover with a small
glass cutting board, and heat on the gas burner for a minute or so.
Turn off, let stand, pour pickle back into the jar, rinse piece and
dish- voila! Not very professional-sounding, I know, but it works,
and my wife doesn’t seem to mind. But, ironically, the cost of the
dishes was way more than a cheap crock pot, although they could be
garage sale items too. And, for sure, there are times and projects
where this method is not so convenient.

Allan

My travel pickle unit is a used coffee cup warmer with a Pyrex lab
flask (about 500 ml) from American Science and Surplus catalog with
a plastic margarine lid.

Donna in VA

For small items, I use a butter warmer! They consist of a white
ceramic ramekin in its own little stand with a candle below. Just the
right amount of heat. Improvised cover. They usually come in sets of
two. This way I can have it right on my workbench without the mess of
electrical wires and having to be near an outlet. For larger items I
use a food warmer–a sort of raised trivet with a candle under it.

Janet in Jerusalem

I keep pickle warm in a Pyrex jug on the base of an inexpensive
filter coffee maker whose jug was broken.

Larry Bima

I use an old crock pot for my pickle pot, set at low heat. As a
matter of fact it has even saved me on pickle costs, because I don’t
often turn it on. If I am just working on a few pieces, I can
usually get away with popping them into the pot while I work on the
next item. It cleans, I dip the item in a baking soda solution and
rinse it well, and POOF, one down, next to go. If something is
heavily soiled I will switch the pot on until it is warm, but it is a
great and inexpensive solution to a formal “pickle pot”. When I was
still a student and did not have to change my pickle out regularly
due to much less use, I would say that it had the same solution in it
for more than three years. (Rio Grand sells smaller containers of dry
pickling solution) I am still using that first container of mix that
I purchased. If the solution gets too weak, I can usually get away
with adding a tablespoon more of the crystals and add more water. No
need to waste what is already in the pot!

another option I’ve found is one of these electric coffee
warmers…miniature “hot” plates for keeping your coffee warm…and
an old coffee cup.

Jeanne
jeannius.com

Instead of ordering up the standard pickle pot use a crock pot… they
are cheap and work great… maybe someone already suggested that. When
I was learning the trade from a master jeweler he used a coffee mug
with a light bulb next to it… ha ha… I don’t profess that at this
time…

Russ Hyder
http://www.thejewelrycadinstitute.com

Here’s an oddball problem I’ve had with crock pots as pickle pots: I
use Rio Pickle in my home studio and, having seen one work just fine
at Revere Academy, I tried using a crock pot as my pickle pot. It
fairly quickly (in a matter of days, I believe) crazed the outer
surface of the ceramic crock with fine cracks that began to produce
powdery-fine, white crystals! I was rather shocked, to say the least!
This was a brand new crock pot, mind you. So I tried a “Little
Dipper” crock pot with a non-removable crock and the same kind of
thing happened with it, except the crystals were now longer and
greenish-blue. I have no idea what happened! I mixed the pickle to
the manufacturer’s instructions, so it shouldn’t be that it was too
strong of a solution. I am currently using the same mix of solution,
cold, in a standard 1000mL Pyrex beaker with no problems (but no
heat). What gives? Help me!

My first boss, who made beautiful high karat gold and platinum
jewelry, and employed at least 7 benchworkers plus a foreman, a
polisher, and a stonesetter, had a very expensive washout sink with
a $20 crockpot for the pickle sitting on top of it.

Nowadays almost everyone I know uses “PH Down” from the local pool
supply store instead of Sparex as it’s cheaper and just about the
same thing minus some buffers or something. The ingredient is sodium
bisulfate.

I use an inexpensive small crock pot, the size they use for melting
the cheese and salsa for nachos. Got it for $8, and have been using
it for over 10 years with no problems. It has a built in light so I
can see when it is on. I tossed the Sparex and now use PH Down. Not
only is it cheaper than sparex,but I don’t have to contend with that
brownish oily gunk that came with the Sparex.

Alma

My first boss, who made beautiful high karat gold and platinum
jewelry, and employed at least 7 benchworkers plus a foreman, a
polisher, and a stonesetter, had a very expensive washout sink
with a $20 crockpot for the pickle sitting on top of it. 

Crock pot is too hot…use medium or low heat

I’ve been using crock pots for 30 years. I’ve found them to be
perfect. They do, however, give up the ghost after a while-- maybe 3
years or so. The ceramic glaze eventually etches away or the elements
give out.

I most often buy them at yard sales. The best are the ones where the
"crock" itself is removable. Easier to fill, etc…

Usually run around $5 at most yard sales or at Goddwill, etc.

Hope that helps.
Andy

A suggestion for pickle and pickle pots: I use sulfuric acid in
water and never change it, just add more acid when it gets slow.
There is no problem with salt deposits on anything. We never heat our
pickle, it puts acid into the air and rusts the tools much more
quickly. Any decent stainless steel or titanium container will work
as well as glass or a good high fired glazed pot. We use a Williams
Sonoma stainless fish poacher, though the tack welded handle for the
lid broke off fairly soon, it was reforged into something a bit more
interesting and riveted with stainless pins. Going strong for 15
years or so.