Aluminum Platen repair, cal rod element 110 volt

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Hi all, customer came in yesterday with the terminal broken off of a cal rod element on an aluminum platen for a silk screening machine [just like some electric grills], the guy tried to replace a wire that was burnt and broke the threaded rod off inside of the element. The cal rod element could not be replaced without replacing the whole aluminum platen because it was embedded or cast into it, a $500.00 part. Ohmed out the element,checked good, 5.6 ohms, no shorts,  I told him I would try to fix it but no guarantees or warranty, he told me this was the only machine he had and that this shut his business down, I told him my shop rate, he said try to fix it. So, any cal rod element has a filament type element surrounded by ceramic and a metal jacket around the ceramic the length of the element. Some elements have tabs on each end you can put a screw though others have a small threaded rod you screw nuts on to make the electrical connections, this one as I said had the threaded rods, one of them had broken off a 1/4" inside the metal jacket, the metal jacket was sticking out passed the aluminum about 7/8" , so, I cut some of the metal jacket off without cutting the threaded rod, cleaned off the ceramic to get down to the threaded rod, screwed a nut to the rod, silver soldered the nut to the rod, had a tab from an old element and silver soldered it to the nut, crimped a new high heat terminal on to a new high heat wire and installed it on the tab with a new screw, used the same cloth jacket to cover the wire and tab, ohmed the element to ground no short and still had the same ohm reading 5.6. Success the element was in good shape again, it took about an hour to repair, made out the bill, the customer was very happy and said that I had just gotten a customer for life. Well here are pictures of what I did. Have a good one, Jeff. Attached Images
Reply:Interesting... I screen print also, and have never seen a heated platen. I 'm it's expensive though. Just a flat aluminum platen usually runs upward of $150. Any idea what he prints? I do shirts.My welder:Century 180 Wire feed welder.
Reply:No idea of what he prints, just going by what he told me on the cost, $150.00 sounds more reasonable though, could be he meant the whole machine, I don't know for sure, but even at that price he still got a good deal for the repair. Jeff.