preparing plastic for shooting

[snake River]

I just got a PM this morning from a gentleman that was having problems heating his plastic he proceeded to tell me that he is using a hot plate there is a little trick doing that you cannot put your pot directly on a burner you have to be awful careful if you do because you will burn the plastic quickly you have to put a barrier between the hot plate burner in your pot I suggest strongly that the beginners find a use microwave oven in a garage sale or go buy a brand-new one you can find them fairly cheap and you don't need a big one microwave oven is a safe us that I found just make sure that you do not run your time very long and you should stir every few seconds to get it to the right temperature or like it falls off a stirring rod pretty close to a drop of water I like to run mine about 325° you can get a meter to check this remember the meter is only hitting the top of your plastic so you should constantly stir because you will see some white settlement in the Pyrex cup that you should be using keep stirring until this disappears you shouldn't have any problems.

[cub48]

I started out using a hot plate the pot u use needs a thick bottom the thin bottom does not work unless like snake said u put a spacer on the hot plate. Start out less than 1/2 the knob until u see how much it takes to heat your plastic then stir and stir until u reach the temp u need 350f then cut the temp about a 1/4 knob and adjust to keep your temp. Thrift stores are good places to find pots and Microwaves cheap. I just bought a microwave and now i am having to learn the way to use the plastic in it. You can scorch plastic in a MW too LOL Cub48

[softball dad]

I used a toaster over to heat my plastics but it took like 30 min to heat the darn plastic I got a microwave and the rest is history.