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Heat muffs and stainless steel wool

airguy

airguy

Unrepentant fanboy
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I've seen several builders post about packing their heat muffs with stainless steel wool to enhance the heat transfer, and I was planning on doing just that but now I can't find any STAINLESS steel wool locally. Standard steel, yes, but that will oxidize and fall out rapidly, not what I want to see happen. I found some copper wool, but no stainless. Anybody have a good source?
 
I bought some through amazon. I remove it in the summer months to prevent over heating the exhaust.
 
Just go to any grocery store and pick up the stainless steel pot scrubbers....it is all the same stuff.
 
Capflyer said:
Just go to any grocery store and pick up the stainless steel pot scrubbers....it is all the same stuff.
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That was the trouble I was running into - they don't sell them locally apparently - lots of standard steel wool and even some copper wool, but everything else is nylon scrubbers now. People want cheap and disposable stuff.
 
Another suggestion would be to head to the local restaurant supply house or perhaps one of the restaurants you go to will sell a few to you. Every restaurant that scrubs pots uses these (asuming your state doesn't have restrictions against them, some do). They cost the restaurant about $1 apeice unless they have a naughty distributor salesman and sleeping buyer. The commercial ones are also larger and more robust than household versions.
 
Just to clarify... Do not put regular steel wool pads (or any other similar metal pad) in your heat muff(s). It will be far to restrictive of airflow and will likely over heat the muff. The product to use (as already mentioned) is Stainless Steel pot scrubber pads. They are far less restrictive, but still add huge amount of extra heat conduction surface area.
 
airguy said:
That was the trouble I was running into - they don't sell them locally apparently - lots of standard steel wool and even some copper wool, but everything else is nylon scrubbers now. People want cheap and disposable stuff.
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Our local Walmarts have them here in WFallsTX. That's where I bought a 3-pack for about 4 bucks. 3M Scotchbrite brand nonetheless too!
 
Neal@F14 said:
Our local Walmarts have them here in WFallsTX. That's where I bought a 3-pack for about 4 bucks. 3M Scotchbrite brand nonetheless too!
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Yup - and the local Walmart here in Midland had them six months ago, but I didn't buy them then because I wasn't ready for it, and now they have stopped carrying them. I talked to the store manager, he said they regularly change the items they carry based on how well they sell - if something doesn't move enough volume it gets cut. Those didn't move, so they got cut.
 
One other option is to wrap the heat muff with exhaust wrap. Do NOT wrap the exhaust, just he heat muff, and buy extra because you will unwrap it every condition inspection.

That will keep the heat in the muff and seems to work very well.
 
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