Wiring this thing was something of a concern. First, I’m not very good at electrical or plumbing stuff. And when something goes wrong it goes very wrong... But normally I can figure things out if I live through the experimentation stage, so I pressed ahead.
I wanted controls for both the pump and the heating element on the outside of the tank. Sure, I could have just left wires hanging off both of them and been done at this point, and in fact you can do that. Just stop right here if you like; it’ll work just fine. Well, except for the wire coming off the pump -- how’s that going to work in a tank full of quenching oil?
Naw, might as well just wire it up right.
The wiring for the heating element will all be on the outside of the tank, while the wire coming off the pump will have to pass through the side of the tank, and it’ll be under the surface of the oil. We’ll see later how that didn’t work out so swell.
The wiring will be covered with wire molding to help protect it from getting snagged on other stuff around the shop. But I wanted to keep the number of holes in the tank to a minimum, so I used - you guessed it - JB Weld to attach 1/4” (.64 cm) thick strips of PVC to the side of the tank. Then I used small sheet metal screws to attach the wire molding to the PVC. Admire my clamp-up! Do I have any duct tape in my 401K?
