Linny's Potential Plater

[googe]

Fucken hell Linny your not mucking around! "punches your arm' :laughing-rolling: good job mate looks very straight! :handgestures-thumbupleft: I found anealing then bending so far with pliers and then finishing with a hammer saves the arms!!. Keep up the good workl mate.

[Brendan]

So what's the trick Linny?

Did you heat it up red hot before hammering?

[Linny]

yeah. most are around 6mm ... I'll file them down even later. cut four plates with a 1mm cutting disk. tidied them up with a flapper wheel.... not as bad as I thought. still have to get them to fit yet

[Linny]

tube ring ??? no annealing yet . cclamped in my wooden jig . used my datum lines and belted it with a round nose hammer. slowly turning it so it gradually flared over. once it was half way . flipped the hammer to the flat side ... then I finished it off even on a steel plate . to get it as flat as possible

[kelbygreen]

id anneal it to finish it off but prob use a bit of timber to flatten it or maybe a wooden mallet something that wont dent the copper.

Its easy to do just heat it right up and let it cool or just dump it into water.

[emptyglass]

Dosn't need to be annealed once done, KG. You get the benifit of the copper work hardening and makes for a still you can use as a whaking stick if you want.

Linny, if you only have 6mm flanges, might pay to check the gasket thickness carefully, what I said before won't be true. You might need a touch more than 1/4" and, assuming you are using a stock standard stainless ferrule on your boiler, you might get a little mucking around finding the right thickness.

I make mine about 8-9mm, this give an outside diameter similar to a 4" SS ferrule. 6mm should work, you just wont ride as deep into the taper inside the clamp. Nothing a good thick gasket shouldn't fix.

[SBB]

Nice work Linny, great looking flanges you've created there.

[Brendan]

Everyone loves your flange Linny ;-)

By tube ring I meant the ring of 1/4" that gets slid over the flare and soldered in Mac's easy easy flange thread...

http://www.aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=76

I didn't realise you hadn't used one, might give the flare a go myself and if it needs thickening ill try the ring over it.

[emptyglass]

If your aunty had balls, she'd be your uncle.

[crow]

With all due respect guys how long does this flaring business take. The easy flange took 5 min to prepare and about the same time to do

[Linny]

I made them in one lunch break

[Brendan]

Crow, I flared a 2 inch last night for practise. Prob took 10 mins for my first try...gotta put some elbow grease into it though...

There seems to be 3 methods, none of which have I seen any body discredit.

Method 1: (Mac's easy easy flange) Make ring of 1/4", flare pipe, slide ring over, hammer flat and solder.
Method 2: (Easy flange) Just make the ring, slide it to the bottom of pipe, hammer flat and hard solder.
Method 3: (What Linny did) Just are the pipe.

I personally am going to try Method 1 to thicken it up for the clamp.

[emptyglass]

I made this a while ago, and it has no reinforcement, just hammered flanges.

[Linny]

Well I've cut and shaped 5 plates, 2x RC plates and a basket plate....

had to re-flatten since the heat annealed it alittle and i was warping ,,,

so all what is left :

1.drill holes in plates
2.build down comers
3.solder plates
4.buy triclamps
5.buy reducers and bends
6.buy pipe for DC and shotgun
7.Build shotgun

ive decided that im not going to use the SS rod for the tree, im going to hole punch around the 4" to create a ring ledge so the plate can sit on it, once its even i'll solder it in and then move on to the next level creating just that little bit more surface area while im at it.

[emptyglass]

ive decided that im not going to use the SS rod for the tree, im going to hole punch around the 4" to create a ring ledge so the plate can sit on it, once its even i'll solder it in and then move on to the next level creating just that little bit more surface area while im at it.

Well mate, I already had my popcorn and drink, now I'm pulling up the pooof.
You can skin the cat however you want. Perf plates are pretty flexable and will tollerate some gap at the wall. Different for caps or valves, but march on in soldier. :silent:

[Linny]

yeah. I was thinking that. since there's 10000 hole s lol . might just tack it since they're a tight fit

[googe]

You know crows gunna say something about your pooof empty :shifty: . Your going to solder the plates in Linny?, what do you mean about more surface area?. Good luck mate.

[emptyglass]

he can say what he likes, but I like pooofs

[Linny]

UPDATE:
Well drilled four and a half plates today and two of the RC plates. what a pain lol ... drill press didnt work with 3,2 and 1 plates, cordless on a block of wood didnt work with 1 plate,,,, ended up going cordless with 2 plates in a vice... worked well.

more photos to come ,,, the RC i cut in 7x 3/4" pipes ,,, had a few issues with 3/4" drill bit... let the smoke out of my next door's top of the line ryobi LOL ,,, still works , just left it overnight to cool down.

QUESTION : with the rock basket i want to drill bigger holes ,,, 5-10mm (more so to hold the volcanic rock) does it need a DC ,,, whats your thoughts on a basket plate ?

[emptyglass]

Use bigger holes, much bigger, like 1/4". I guess you could use a plate drilled with small holes and add some more. You want a grille sort of thing, not a mesh sort of thing. Either way, you want the plate holding your packing in to have more flow than the distillation plates.

You could use the same drilling and add a riser and downcomer and get another distilation cycle, but I don't know how having a fluid bath in the bottom of the packing would go.