"Isaac Wingfield" wrote in message
...
In article et,
DaveC wrote:

Nice old toaster has one dead heat coil.

If the owner want to keep it, what are the options? Are breaks easily
spliced
with hi-temp crimp of some kind?

Here's a "quick fix" that sometimes works for a long time and sometimes
fails quickly (depending, I think, on just how old and brittle the
nichrome wire is).

Mix some ordinary "Boraxo" powdered hand soap with a little water to
make a thick paste -- and you don't need much.

Take the broken ends of wire, bend a small loop into each, and interlock
the loops so the wires stay together.

Pack the Boraxo paste around the joint, and turn on the heater.

Keep your eyes on that joint. As the coil heats up, the hook joint will
be the worst connection, so it'll naturally get the hottest.

When it gets hot enough, the nichrome wires will melt, and, being fluxed
by the borate, will fuse together into a blob. The blob, now being
*larger* than the rest of the wires, will immediately cool down, and
will never again get as "red hot" as the rest of the heater.

Allow the coils to cool down and, using pliers, carefully crush any
glassy flux deposit that remains on the joint.

If the joint doesn't behave as I describe, or if the wires are too
brittle to be formed into hooks, the wires are likely too old to produce
a long-lasting joint. If the joint behaves as I described, it may last
for a good long time.

Or is it best to rewind the coil with new wire?

I've never seen uncoiled nichrome wire of the size you'll likely be
needing. You can try to find a "replacement coil" of nichrome wire at an
appliance repair shop. Be sure the cross-section (gauge) of the new wire
is the same as the old one, and stretch out the replacement to have the
same number of turns per inch as the original -- it'll come tightly
coiled.

Good luck on finding such a replacement coil; they used to be quite
common, but last time I tried to find one (about three years ago) I was
totally unsuccessful.

Naturally, the "victim" had very old coils that could not be repaired by
the nifty "electric welding" technique I mentioned above. We had to buy
a new toaster -- and after only thirty-three years of daily use, too.
They just don't make things like they used to...

Isaac

I must try that one sometime.
I've plenty of Borax and Boric acid powders for use as fireproofing
solution on absorbent materials.
You don't happen to know which one relates to Boraxo ?