I had some time while my pickups were drying, so I decided to test the Honajector
injection molding machine and see what it needs, and the only way to do that was... to fire it up.

 I lucked out because there were only four parts missing - both the clamp handle's knobs,
the clamp's pusher, and the extension handle for the ram. All of these are relatively easy to find.

The interesting part was when I decided to see if it actually works.
Getting it ready was easy, because all I had to do was clamp it to a workmate table
so it wouldn't tip over.
I decided to see if it would heat up and actually inject some plastic, so I cleaned up the screwdriver
handle mold that came with the machine, filled the machine with some of the plastic I also bought,
plugged it in, and waited.

When the temperature was at 400F and the plastic in the heater was melted, I clamped
the handle mold in the machine and pulled the top handle down slowly until the handle stopped,
waited a few seconds to make sure the mold filled, and released the handle.
 
I have no idea what plastic was really in the machine, but the machine still made a screwdriver handle.



I found out the Honajector's original mechanical thermostat controller was very inaccurate, drifting
almost 50F too hot instead of the 5F variance it was rated for. Even worse, it never turned on or off
at the same temperatures twice.

I mounted a 'PID' electronic thermostat controller to the heater assembly to monitor
the heater temperature more accurately without burning any more plastic.



When I took apart the heater assembly to see why it didn't work right, I found years of burned plastic
covering the thermostat and heaters, and black residue filling the heater assembly.
I think as the original thermostat failed in use, the plastic in the heater started burning
and overflowing the top of the heater making the machine unsafe to use.



It was obvious that a total rebuild was necessary before this machine could make the parts I wanted.