G'day from Darling Downs Qld

[bluc]

Truly awesome work :handgestures-thumbupleft: btw what are pistons made of?

[lostmarbles]

Thanks Lowie, I did try a hammered flange and I reckon it'd take fukn ages to get them right but doable. Thats when I tried making the die, the difference 2+ hrs hammered, 20 min from start to finish using the jenny & die per flange and they seal perfect first go. The one I did for a test I checked for flat by using bearing blue on a sheet of glass and clean up with acetone. 320grit wet & dry on a sheet of glass with water works good just to finish up, but you've probably already tried all that stuff anyway.
Cheers bluc the pistons are usually a high silicon aluminium I think and pretty hard as far as alloy goes. I figured it would be ok to use as its all external to the still and will clean up easy with some alloy cleaner.

[hillzabilly]

Get er done is obviously your motto,something that is needed on a farm these days ,its a tough place ta be with no one else ta blame ,exept the bloody weather maybe ,your progress so far is fantastic the still will be a testament to your no nonsence attitude ,something a few pollies could learn from instead of making exuses because they cannot get it done,looking forward ta seeing it finished.If ya leave finished copper stuff in a citric acid bath for a day or two it makes cleaning a lot easier.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[rumdidlydum]

Awesome build thread mate, your almost there :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Zak Griffin]

Seriously impressive build mate. Love the ally sightglasses :-B

Have you slightly angled the sightglass branches? Lovely detail :happy-partydance:

[Lowie]

Thanks Lowie, I did try a hammered flange and I reckon it'd take fukn ages to get them right but doable. Thats when I tried making the die, the difference 2+ hrs hammered, 20 min from start to finish using the jenny & die per flange and they seal perfect first go. The one I did for a test I checked for flat by using bearing blue on a sheet of glass and clean up with acetone. 320grit wet & dry on a sheet of glass with water works good just to finish up, but you've probably already tried all that stuff anyway.
Cheers bluc the pistons are usually a high silicon aluminium I think and pretty hard as far as alloy goes. I figured it would be ok to use as its all external to the still and will clean up easy with some alloy cleaner.

Finally got the bastards to seal last night, had to do a bit of extra hammering and sanding on the RC flanges. Next challenge will be when my sight glasses turn up. Gotta be a bit more delicate with those!

[lostmarbles]

Hi everyone, been a while should have had everything up weeks ago, that time of year around here ~x( with cotton picking, mulching, working ground, spraying, watering ground, dry planting & fertilizing, and fixing broken shit that I haven't had any time for playing on the computer. So the still was finished about 5weeks ago and has done 5 runs of TPW neutral with another 200 L bubbling away, very nice drop and have tried half a dozen different essences. I am hoping to do my McRum wash tomorrow if it's still ok as I've had 55l sitting in the fermenter sealed up for 6 weeks. The only modifications I've had to do is drill an extra 70 holes in each perforated plate, going from about 190 to 260 1/16" holes, fully solder in the plates, resolder 3 of the J downcomers as they were not holding liquid and crimp the lower end of the J downcomer down to 1/2" open. I also had to add a 100 kPa constant pressure regulator for the condenser supply as the bore pump cycling was enough to stop flow from the parrot. Any way I'll continue on with the build with the photo's I have before that bitch gravity took over and broke my phone camera.
And thanks fellas for the comments. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Seriously impressive build mate. Love the ally sightglasses :-B

Have you slightly angled the sightglass branches? Lovely detail :happy-partydance:

Thanks Zak, yes the sight glasses are angled. I use a free online template creator, made it real easy, here's the link http://harderwoods.com/pipetemplate.php .

[Finally got the bastards to seal last night, had to do a bit of extra hammering and sanding on the RC flanges. Next challenge will be when my sight glasses turn up. Gotta be a bit more delicate with those!

Good to hear Lowie.

Anyway I'll continue where I left off.

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[lostmarbles]

Next was to turn the keg into a boiler, so I borrowed a TIG and dug out the trusty plasma cutter. Been 28 years since I tig welded so the welds aren't that pretty.

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I didn't take as many photos as I thought.

[lostmarbles]

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Then I had to find a material to fill the packed section for neutral, so I decided to make cylindrical stainless gauze packing from the stainless gauze I already had. I made them about the same size as ceramic rachig rings 8mm id x 13mm long, knocked up a tool to make them and about 10hrs later :doh: I had a column full of packing. I used another piece of gauze at the bottom convex up to hold them there. They seem to work really well.

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[lostmarbles]

More pics of column packing saga

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:roll:

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[lostmarbles]

Ok it's assembled, I used 2 brass welch plugs and a piece of 2" for the element cover. I made the mistake of not having the boiler sitting dead flat and it got a sway up when it got to a rolling boil during the vinegar run, had to tie the top of the column back to the shelves with wire. Added 3 30cm legs before the sacrificial run.

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I used dead mig welder for my power controller/meter housing, as well as a place to store any bits not being used. The internals are totally gutted out. I am using a Chinese 10kw power controller and power meter which is pretty accurate and works well. both bits were off eBay. The element is a 3600 w one off of Mac.

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Sorry about the pic quality, the camera is suffering the effects of a 5 meter fall.

[lostmarbles]

These are the 2 major mods I did inside to get the plates to load properly at 2200 - 2400 w. Will see how they go on the McRum run.

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And a couple of pics from one of the TPW neutral runs.

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Think I might have to try a CFW pretty soon.

[lostmarbles]

Well the first rum run was a fail, puked into the first plate with only 30l charge & a dash of cooking oil. Smeared tails through most of it. Second run was better with 1l of hearts from 25l charge. It started into the first plate but I backed off the power by about 200w and it settled down again. I was using less power on the first run. Take off speed was the same on both runs too, about toothpick size stream :wtf: Everything came off at the 93% abv mark. So second gen is bubbling away now so we'll see what happens next time. I've read about rum washes puking.
Does lifting the first plate away from the boiler with a spacer help at all?
If it does would 550mm be too far? as that's the length of my packed section (emptied of course)

[hillzabilly]

I like what ya did with the staino gauze packing ,its outta the box Aussie thinkin like that wich inspires me to keep lookin for advancements or options we can all use ,ya certainly have not lost ya marbles in my mind 10 points mate.cheers hillzabilly ;-)

[Zak Griffin]

Love your work mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The unpacked packed section underneath the plates might help... you may just have real pukey molasses though. If it keeps puking, set your still up as a pot still and strip straight into a keg or big glass jars. Let the bastard spew (within reason) and rerun the low wines through the bubbler :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[lostmarbles]

Sounds like a plan Zak. I can get my hands on a lot of that molasses.

[Zak Griffin]

I had a batch of molasses that puked no matter what I did... set the old pot up to puke straight into the missus' good stainless saucepans, then i tipped it into the low wines keg. Produced some bloody tasty rum after a spirit run!

[lostmarbles]

Thanks for the info Zak.

I like what ya did with the staino gauze packing ,its outta the box Aussie thinkin like that wich inspires me to keep lookin for advancements or options we can all use ,ya certainly have not lost ya marbles in my mind 10 points mate.cheers hillzabilly ;-)

Thanks mate, I agonised over spending the time to make them. Came up with the idea after I tried rolling the stainless gauze as a sheet. I wanted something easy to clean that wouldn't go rank. They work exceptionally well, but have to say I have nothing else to compare them to either. I did find an article ( link follows) after much googling and well after I had made my packing, that some other smartass had come up with the same idea and done some research on them. They reckon if I've read the document right that they are up to 10% more efficient than Rashig rings. Oh well, at least I knew I hadn't wasted my time. I reckon if I had to do them again I'd knock up a little machine to make them, and also if they could be purchased for a reasonable price, they would definitely be worth a go.
Link to research paper "Ethanol separation efficiency in a packed distillation column" http://www.journalrepository.org/media/ ... Sj3175.pdf

[hillzabilly]

Wow reading that article made my brain hurt with some of the terminology,with staino mesh I see its advantages as it will not degrade over time and need replaceing like copper,and the copper can be over packed causeing a restriction and subsequent flooding problems were as with the staino mesh the whole packed section will have an even structure without areas of different compactness,thats a problem with copper knowing how tight to roll each section for best results,I did try 6mm rachi rings in the 4inch colomn but found it could not handle more than 2-3000wt with out flooding and 13mm saddles were not much better,was an expensive learning exersize.The only down side I see is the loss of sulphide removeal from staino compared ta copper ,but with your all copper rig I do not see that being a problem.cheers hillzabilly ;-)PS try googleing prismatic packing if ya like a good read.