Russ's bubbler

Perforated & bubble cap plated columns

Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Sun Aug 05, 2018 10:38 pm

Doing well Russ, keep it going :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Mon Aug 06, 2018 6:08 pm

bluc wrote:Sweet as personally I would get a 4" fitting on keg. 2" is bit wonky...


Yeah I am tending to agree with you, once you see how large the column is all assembled the 2" fitting suddenly seems way undersized. I was originally going to build some kind of support for the column to help, but a larger ferrule is probably easier to do anyway.


Bryan1 wrote:Yea what I've found when tiggin copper if the filler rod isn't 100% clean it will cause porosity, I use 1.6mm enameled copper wire and spend ages sanding off the enamel. Even tried burning it off too then sanding but still get porosity, in the end I just use a clean glove for the filler feed and that seems to work.

Now for hard soldering putting the solder piece ontop of a burner can speed up the process by a huge margin as copper is a natural heatsink if another heat source is there the part you heat with a torch will get upto temp that much quicker.

Cheers Bryan


The filler I gave to my mate was freshly stripped from clean cable, it was almost mirror finish, also he had never used a tig on copper before, it was a learning experience for both of us thats for sure. Yes copper has amazing thermal transfer, sitting pieces on the BBQ certainly helped things along.

dans.brew wrote:
Russ wrote:
Decided to assemble what parts I do have so far, hopefully I will get inspired and finish it someday.

Coming together nicely Russ!
Just keep thinking of how shiney it will look all polished up... not to mention the tasty nectar that will flow from it! That should keep you going. :laughing-rolling:


I certainly am thinking of the end product, can't wait to see if it all works. Polishing should be interesting, there is a lot of surface area, and awkward spots to reach. Be worth it though, it should look pretty sweet in the corner of the shed!


woodduck wrote:Doing well Russ, keep it going :handgestures-thumbupleft:


Thanks, will do ! :)
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:47 pm

bluc wrote:Sweet as personally I would get a 4" fitting on keg. 2" is bit wonky...


I'm happy with my 2" ferrule, but my column isn't modular, my plate spacing is about 110 mm (others have upwards of 150 mm), I don't have a packed section and my RC is pretty short. So the amount of mass my ferrule is holding up may be a fair bit less than what others have.

Nice work Russ, keep going mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Currently having a makeover: 2" x 4 plate solid state bubbler (1" bubble caps, no sight glasses...maybe not for much longer!) on a bain-marie boiler.

Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby dans.brew » Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:06 pm

:text-+1:
My bubbler is only a 2" join to the boiler and i haven't had any problems.. yet anyway. Mine is modular and the plates i think were around a 140mm spacing.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:51 pm

Cheers guys, sounds like at least it will work as it is for now if I have to. I would like to add a 6" ferrule and end cap to allow for cleaning as well eventually, though it gets a bit cozy on the top of the keg, might have to do some creative angle grinding.

At the moment I just have a 50mm welded threaded fitting with cap that I was going to maybe shove a clean in place sphere down to clean out the boiler.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby nuddy » Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:04 pm

Russ wrote:Cheers guys, sounds like at least it will work as it is for now if I have to. I would like to add a 6" ferrule and end cap to allow for cleaning as well eventually, though it gets a bit cozy on the top of the keg, might have to do some creative angle grinding.

At the moment I just have a 50mm welded threaded fitting with cap that I was going to maybe shove a clean in place sphere down to clean out the boiler.


Thats where I'm heading with my new boiler. Have you sorted out what kind of pump youre gonna run your CIP ball off?
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Fri Aug 10, 2018 7:32 pm

nuddy wrote:
Thats where I'm heading with my new boiler. Have you sorted out what kind of pump youre gonna run your CIP ball off?


Nah not yet, I was going to see how it goes just on tap pressure, if that's no good I plan to make a small sump/pump/heating element setup using a dishwasher pump and some kind of reservoir. That way I can just pop a dishwasher lolly in and basically run it for a while to make it self clean.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Aug 19, 2018 6:53 pm

Bit more today, used some 32mm ish pipe to open up and make copper plate, then cut out three pieces to make the PC core, ready to silver solder.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sat Sep 08, 2018 1:26 pm

Bit more of an ugly duckling than a parrot at this stage but here is the WIP photo of my parrot, got a bit more silver soldering to do but you get the idea.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:27 pm

What size is that tube leading into the parrot? It looks quite small? It may not be a problem but if you have surging problems or it starts backing up and bubbling when you run it I'd start there but hopefully it will be fine.

Looks good though mate, a bit of a clean up and she'll be right as rain :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Sep 09, 2018 9:11 am

I used 3/8 pipe, the idea was to keep the liquid volume in the parrot to a minimum where possible.

If it does back up I could always remove the 3/8 and put 1/2 in.

The pipe annealed quite soft after soldering, glad I decided to add the little bracing bit at the top.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Sun Sep 09, 2018 9:22 am

I used 3/8" on mine, worked really well, my first one used 1/4" and was too narrow. I have 1/4" on my outlet (beak) but I need to change it cause at higher flow it splutters. Not sure if I should change it for 1/2" or 3/8".

Yours will look good after a clean up :teasing-neener:
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equipment: Eve - 4" x 4 plate solid state bubbler (sieve plates), 330 mm packed section on a keg boiler with 2 x 2000 W elements.
Currently having a makeover: 2" x 4 plate solid state bubbler (1" bubble caps, no sight glasses...maybe not for much longer!) on a bain-marie boiler.

Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Sep 09, 2018 9:47 am

Good to know 3/8 will handle it.

I haven't cleaned it up yet since I still have to solder the reducer on and the brace piece to the reducer, the mapp gas torch I have won't get it anywhere near hot enough, and I need a couple more bits for the PC ready to solder before I go to my mates place to use his oxy set.

I was going to go perf plate straight up but am now wondering about doing caps, is there a proven/standard design for 4" ?

I kinda like the idea of one large cap but read somewhere that multiple smaller ones are better, time for coffee and research.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Sun Sep 09, 2018 10:18 am

3/8 should be fine, it just looked like 1/4. You'll want a breather on it as well mate if you don't have one already or you'll have surging problems. Its just a small 1/4 pipe off the side of the inlet tube, just make sure you have it higher than the top of the main parrot tube :handgestures-thumbupleft:

There's some info about how I did my caps in the Glass Duck thread if your interested. Link is below in my signature.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Sun Sep 09, 2018 11:22 am

I was thinking of putting the breather on the 3" to 2" reducer part, like you say above the parrot, should be OK there.

I'll check out your design, thanks for that. So many options, I like how Mr tinkers did his caps using stainless washers, but I've never had much luck brazing dissimilar metals together, probably a lack of patience issue more than anything.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby woodduck » Sun Sep 09, 2018 1:59 pm

My caps are fixed. Haven't seen any problems with it so far. All depends how complicated you want to get.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:02 pm

I like to keep things as simple as possible, suits my simple brain haha.
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby Russ » Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:16 pm

Some more done after work today, soldered the PC core to its end plates and internal baffle, also finished off the parrot.

Bent up some 1/2" pipe for the water connections, ready to solder in.

Also have a bent piece of 1/4 for the breather, laid it all on the bench and I think it should work, I would have soldered everything in tonight but the kids seem to like to eat every night, so inconvenient!
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Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby dans.brew » Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:28 pm

Coming along nicely Russ. :music-deathmetal:
Not sure what the go is with kids needing to be fed.... i seem to have this same problem. Must be something in it :laughing-rolling:
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equipment: Pure Distilling Reflux Still
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4" x 4 plates Bubbler with 2"bubble caps on 50ltr keg boiler

Re: Russ's bubbler

Postby db1979 » Fri Sep 14, 2018 8:44 pm

dans.brew wrote:Coming along nicely Russ. :music-deathmetal:
Not sure what the go is with kids needing to be fed.... i seem to have this same problem. Must be something in it :laughing-rolling:

I've got mine providing for themselves twice a day now... Looking forward to when I don't need to get food for them at all :happy-partydance:

Nice work Russ :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Posts: 1760
Joined: Sat Dec 29, 2012 3:47 pm
Location: South of the big smoke in banana bender land.
equipment: Eve - 4" x 4 plate solid state bubbler (sieve plates), 330 mm packed section on a keg boiler with 2 x 2000 W elements.
Currently having a makeover: 2" x 4 plate solid state bubbler (1" bubble caps, no sight glasses...maybe not for much longer!) on a bain-marie boiler.

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