Heat Lamps?

[Wm.Traynor]

Have those of you who bed their own rifles, ever used a form of heat to facilitate the setting of the epoxy?
My epoxy, JB Weld 8281, is OK to set at 26C but the days have not quite reached that yet, so I thought of trying heat.
I don't know how long the job has to be heated, but I am thinking 30C would do but how do you apply the heat?

[JohnV]

Have those of you who bed their own rifles, ever used a form of heat to facilitate the setting of the epoxy?
My epoxy, JB Weld 8281, is OK to set at 26C but the days have not quite reached that yet, so I thought of trying heat.
I don't know how long the job has to be heated, but I am thinking 30C would do but how do you apply the heat?

It 's not a good idea because when you bed a rifle you want to have a small amount of bedding compound left over to monitor the hardening . If you use any kind of extra heat you would need to make sure both get the same heat otherwise you could end up with the bedding compound going too hard before the monitoring sample does . It is safer to keep it just natural hardening and monitor the sample . When the sample resists deforming from a push with a screwdriver point then it's hard enough to remove the stock gently as long as the right clearances have been made then you clean up and refit the stock with semi tight action screws and allow to fully cure before applying full screw torque . If you really want to apply any heat do it after the stock has been cleaned up and refitted but be careful you could damage the stock finish . I live way further South than you and I have never found it necessary even in winter if your inside a reasonably warm building . You can always set the bedding up and take the gun and sample inside the house to monitor it if the shed is too cold . Heating the room is a better way than heating the gun .

[Wm.Traynor]

Food for thought thank you John

[JohnV]

Your welcome mate , bedding is not that difficult once you know how to accommodate the various action styles . Even a rough looking bedding job will work ok if it adheres to a few simple rules . The main mistake areas are , leaving the stock on for the whole curing period , not allowing for extra tape clearance in the right areas for the recoil lug style , applying too much force to hold the action in place and introducing stress into the job , just use tape , not applying tape collars to the barrel to maintain original action in-letting height before any material is removed , not leaving a small piece of the original stock in-let height at the tang to stop it dropping at the tang .
You could also glue in pillars first at the original inlet height and that will keep the action at the correct height while you then remove material for the bedding bog but it can be difficult to keep the bog away from getting in between the pillar and the action as you put it in . Then hold the action on the bog with the action screws with firm tightness . ( I prefer screwing the extra long pillars hard onto the action first then push it down into the bog . Then after cured mill the pillars back flat at the bottom inlet )
After it's all done there is a way to check for any unwanted stress in the bedding system. Lay the gun on it's side on a towel bolt up and then slowly unscrew the front action screw while watching the front forend barrel gap at the very end of the forend . If that gap opens up as you unscrew the front screw then you have action stress . If it only opens a few thousandths of an inch it's probably good to go . If it opens say 10 thou it's not optimal but may still shoot better than before . If it opens more than that say 25 thou or more it's got too much stress . Tighten back up and do the same at the rear action screw watching the tang height . The ideal situation is to be able to unscrew each screw one at a time and not see any real movement .
As an example I once went to property in South West Qld and the owner had a few guns with various problems . I fixed most of them but one gun a 243 Parker Hale midland was shooting real bad so I did a rough bedding job with car bog and any tape and tools I found in his workshop . I loaded up some ammo for him and sighted it in . It looked as rough as guts compared to what I can normally do but it adhered to all the rules and shot well . The owner was very happy with it and took a brush turkey with a neck shot from 90 odd meters , he was ecstatic . The property was Rockwell and Blue Lakes . I can say that now because he sold it to Womba station and they would never let me back on

[Wm.Traynor]

Thank you again John; that was a good story and the info is no load to carry

[northdude]

A guy over here uses hot water bottles

[Wm.Traynor]

A guy over here uses hot water bottles

I heard about the hot water bottle trick but knew of no way to monitor the temperature of the job without putting a thermometer in the chamber. The foregoing assumes that the temperature would actually need to be monitored. I don't know how long to heat the job either.
Yesterday however, a small test-batch was mixed and left overnight, in temperatures that were much cooler than applied to when the floorplate was bedded. See my post in Off Topic, under What did you do Today, 22/9 at 7:38pm, page 43. This morning it was rock-hard. This follows the advice of JohnV, above.
So to cut a long story short, JohnV's advice works and I won't be bothering about heat. I was misinformed about the need for it, at least with this variety of JB Weld.

[Die Judicii]

Mostly,, if whatever bedding material is being used is mixed properly, and to the correct ratio,,, it will do the job properly anyway.
A low ambient temperature may only slow things down, but with a dose of patience, it still goes off.
Two pack stuff goes off via a chemical reaction MAINLY,,,, and thus produces its own heat.

Most of the rifles I do I usually just get everything in place properly and use (depending on the job) tape, rubber bands, or partial tension on the screws.
Then go to bed and resume in the morning.

I've never yet had a disaster or poor results,, and use the two pack material as posted here quite some time back,,,, from Bunnings.

[Wm.Traynor]

Mostly,, if whatever bedding material is being used is mixed properly, and to the correct ratio,,, it will do the job properly anyway.
A low ambient temperature may only slow things down, but with a dose of patience, it still goes off.
Two pack stuff goes off via a chemical reaction MAINLY,,,, and thus produces its own heat.

Most of the rifles I do I usually just get everything in place properly and use (depending on the job) tape, rubber bands, or partial tension on the screws.
Then go to bed and resume in the morning.

I've never yet had a disaster or poor results,, and use the two pack material as posted here quite some time back,,,, from Bunnings.

Thank you Die Judicii