Would certainly be a lot less expensive than a rice cooker, and
you can always trust Peter's recommendations.
Except for when I’m wrong… It DOES happen now and then you know…
I’m just as prone to error as anyone else…
But thanks, Alma, for the compliment. Not sure it’s all that
deserved, but thanks, and I’m glad you find my occasionally too wordy
posts useful.
The message there is to always take ANY advice, no matter where it’s
from, with at least a little bit of caution and common sense. I (or
any other poster) might have had a bad day, might not have been using
the best method even if the one I used had worked for me, or might
just have remembered something wrong. Same as anyone else here.
But in this case, consider:
Commercial steam dewaxers are nothing more than a container with a
door (lid) that encloses the steaming area. No pressure seal or
anything like that. The flasks sit on a rack above a pan filled with
water and an immersed heating element that boils the water. Wax
melts and ends up floating on the water, where it can be picked up as
a grungy sheet-like mass after everything cools again.
Any container in which you can support the flask while enclosed so as
to trap steam, and in which you can generate steam, will work. A big
tin can on the stove, a large surplus cook pot (mine was a buck at a
garage sale), or if you like a rice steamer. But remember, once you
use it for a dewaxer, you’ll not likely ever be able to use it for
much else again. The wax gets everywhere on the thing and is hard to
clean off. A nice rice cooker costs a lot more than an old pot or old
coffee can (as another poster suggested). But it also eliminates the
need to do it on the stove, or presumably in the kitchen.
Your choice. Almost anything you can gerry rig to do this will work.
Try to keep the flask itself out of the boiling water (which might
break down the immersed investment), and have a decent lid on the
whole affair to trap the steam and heat. That’s all you need to do.
Also, understand that steam dewaxing mostly is done to reduce fumes
in burnout. It doesn’t necessarily make a great difference in most
casting unless your burnout oven has trouble completely eliminating
all the wax and carbon residue. Or if you’re doing stone in place
casting, where steam dewaxing is usually required. But otherwise,
many smaller scale casters find it just an extra, and unnecessary
step. In my shop, the only times I do it is with flasks having a lot
of wax in them, so as to reduce smoke and fumes in the shop. Usually,
I don’t bother.
Cheers
Peter Rowe