Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi everybody, I have started to build a 4" bubbler after a lot of research, talking and straight out procrastination.

My plan is to make rum, whisky and brandy, with a bit of luck they will be drinkable.

I have a CNC wood router in the shed that I used to cut the plates for the RC, it made a mess but was a lot easier than drilling by hand.

So far I have done some EZ flanges on the plate sections, and started the RC, as always pics or it didn't happen...

Welcome and sweet looking modules :D would love to see a pic of your cnc machine :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Some pics of the RC so far...

Good start there bud! :dance:

Take pleanty of pics and have lots of fun.

Thanks Bluc, no probs, I will find a photo somewhere.

I should also mention the finger in one of the photos, when I send pics like this to my mates I always include something for a size reference, and a finger works well for this purpose, I am sure you will understand haha.

12x 1/2" aint nuthin gettin past there :handgestures-thumbupleft: r u doing perf plates?

Cheers Dan, there might be some swearing mixed with the fun part, but so far so good.

bluc wrote:12x 1/2" aint nuthin gettin past there :handgestures-thumbupleft: r u doing perf plates?

Hey Bluc, actually they are 5/8, got a bit cozy when I was silver soldering them in but they seemed ok, time will tell if I made a RC or a sprinkler...

Also you know the old saying measure twice cut once ? well I assumed being 5/8 and with 15.88 stamped all over the pipe that it (AC pipe offcuts) would be 15.88mm, well apparently not, they are actually a bit smaller...oh well nothing some more heat and rod didn't fix (hopefully)

Yes perf plate for now, ordered some 1.5mm carbide cutters ages ago, will see how they perform drilling a LOT of holes, I am not exactly sure how many holes I need, more research required.

I might change to bubble caps later once I understand them a little better and can build them, good part of having a modular setup.

Cheers.

Russell.

Another of the RC showing the plumbing, I ran out of gas so need to wait till I can restock before I burn some more parts.

In the meantime I plan to cut the blockhead section and EZ flange it, I can't fit the 4" in the CNC machine to cut out holes, bit of a bummer, I will need to use a holesaw I guess. I could probably notch the 3" for the sightglasses which would help. I also need to clean up the RC and get the EZ flanges ready to solder in.

Any suggestions for the blockhead length ? I might do some vodka infusion one day, might as well build it now and be prepared. I was thinking 250mm long blockhead with 3" pipe exiting at the top, I know I could go 2" to the PC but I already have sourced some 3" pipe and bends, you gotta piss with the dick you have!!

Russell.

My blockhead is just shy of 200mm but with 2" exiting, you will need longer to suit the 3". Prob dont make it too much longer than you need, otherwise things get taller than you think quickly.
Especially if you oneday add a packed section.

Righto, I hadn't planned on a packed section, but never say never I guess. I could use 2" as I have some of that as well, but the 90 degree 3" bend i have looks so cool.

Bit more done today, cut the blockhead section to length, decided on 240mm long, made up and hammered on the EZ flanges for the RC and blockhead ready to solder on once I get some more gas.

Nice work Russ. It's going to be a sexy beast once it's done.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Professor Green wrote:Nice work Russ. It's going to be a sexy beast once it's done.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

:text-+1: You definitely have some nice skills :clap:

Nice one russ. Good progress mate. Plenty of practice in prep for that piece of 6 inch....

Looking good Russ.
Procrastination is good BTW... :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Packed section whether you use it (packed or not) is good for extra height too.
You might want to consider hard soldering the RC tubes to the plate in case the soft solder melts when you're soldering the assembly into the tube. Or, you could just solder the lot in one go too!

Cheers guys, lets hope I don't destroy it doing the sight glasses and blockhead T, that should be interesting.

Hey chief, dunno who'd want a 6 inch column...haha

Lowie the RC tubes are silver soldered, well whatever the rods with the yellow paint on the end are, we use it for AC pipe joins/repairs. I plan to use that for the whole build, only issue is that you need a lot of heat to get things moving, and I only have a portable mapp/oxy set with disposable cylinders to use (borrowed from work), while it gets enough heat it is really using the oxy bottles like crazy. I suppose they are better suited for small jobs, you would be in serious trouble if you had to do this much soldering on an AC install. I am hoping to borrow a "real" oxy set to finish off.

That's the way to do it Russ. General consensus is silver solder (otherwise known as hard solder around here) for structural (load bearing) joints and lead free (soft) solder for the other stuff - saves heaps on gas. I built mind with the same gas set too. went through heaps of oxy til I figured out I could use the mapp gas to heat it at the same time. It's only the 4" stuff that sucks up all the heat and requires oxy. Other sizes you'll be ok with mapp. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Looking at the PC, how does 9 pipes 1/2" diameter sound? In a 3" outer pipe.

Thinking of either one or three baffles internally so the inlet and outlet pipes are on the same side.

Also thinking about 600 - 800 in length, I don't wish to lose any precious vapor and it could possibly be used on a high power stripping run.

Yeah I found that once the whole 4" piece heated up it was easy to solder, but that is a very large heatshrink and copper is a great conductor of heat, as we all know.