Scrounging parts - The physical chemist's trade

I've started to build the bending iron from a design on the web shown here. I bought a foot and a half of 2" diameter steel pipe, 3 feet of 5/16" threaded rod and an appropriate number of nuts and washers. The poor dead beast above just needs the heating element and to be attached to a platform. The electric charcoal starter is on the way (Home Despot no longer sells them). I've got ridiculous amounts of scrap 3/4" plywood to make a base. One remaining question. How to control the temperature?

Being an out of practice physical chemist, I thought, buy a temperature programmer, but $150 later, it seemed less appealing. The the idea of a 1000W dimmer seemed crude. No good way to get reproducible settings. Then I remembered the words of my Ph.D. advisor: "scrounge". I dug out the old Thermolyne hot plate behind my power tools collecting dust (so much for the grand organizational effort).

I opened it up and found the answer, a bimetallic heat control in parallel with the hot plate surface. So all I need to do is disconnect the hot plate element (the red wires) and connect the charcoal starter. Voila! The best part is, it doesn't destroy the hot plate so I can use if for heating other goodies at a later date.

Stay tuned!!!