Bender The Bubbler Build Thread

[Milky]

I have been busy with other stuff which sucks but in the last week I got heaps of welding done. This time I had a few practices on some test pieces before attempting the RC & PC. The copper weld rods I bought worked really well. Didn't need much heat before flow started and then dip the rod near the pool and vwoop! Welding rod flowed! The results are below after a citric acid soak and a quick scotchbrite. Where I have used the welding filler rod, the welds are sort of grey. Where I fuse welded with no rod is copper pink. Some welds are really messy but I guess that happens when you haven't picked up a TIG in over 10 years. Will go over some of the welds once I'm all done.

Enjoy!

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[Milky]

The PC was a little harder to weld up. It was fiddly to tack weld it all together. I hard soldered the brass water fittings to the copper tube then welded them into the PC after drilling 1/2" holes. And I couldn't help myself , I clamped what I have completed together for a photo at the end. Now on to soldering/welding my downcomers onto the plates and welding up 3 more sight glasses onto the modules and that is all the welding on the column done!

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[Milky]

I managed to weld up the other 3 modules today and the 4 plates. Results below.

Finally got my groove back with the TIG welding. Used 120AMPS.

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[Milky]

Well on the way to finishing!

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[woodduck]

That's some bloody nice work there milky :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Not long now mate and she'll be running hot.

[1 2many]

Good stuff milky keep it up :handgestures-thumbupleft:

You might be able to knock woodduck off his perch and make it to the portal. :dance:

[woodduck]

Good stuff milky keep it up :handgestures-thumbupleft:

You might be able to knock woodduck off his perch and make it to the portal. :dance:

Yer it's great to see some builds happening again, it was a bit quiet for a while. Keep up the good work and I'm sure it will be a big contender for the portal :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[xcvator]

Smoooooooth welding :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Milky]

I cut all the remaining holes out of the welded modules today with a hole saw in the drill press with the module clamped in a vice. I then cleaned each hole up using a Dotco air die grinder with a 1" sanding cylinder piece on course then fine then shoved a rotary scotchbrite flapper disc all inside the 3" sigtglass and then up the guts of the 4" insides. Came up almost as nice as EG's stuff! Was very happy with it

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[Milky]

Thanks for all the kind words so far. Not quite done yet as I want to polish this up. No sense in not doing it now, only to look at it in the future and want to see a polished still!!!

As for knocking Woodduck off the portal...........nahhhh, as if. His build is spectacular and I've never seen anything like it before. Such a sexy still and boiler! Mine on the other hand...........hahah

[Milky]

So apart from some grinding of the welds and re-welding the top piece from the RC to the PC and the nose of the PC, all the manufacturing is pretty much done. So, I couldn't resist the temptation to put it all together and sit it on the 45L stainless eyewash bottle I plan on using as an ageing vessel in the future, just to see how it looks. I know we have all seen a bubbler before but this one was half complete with a right forearm radial nerve problem(being right handed this sucked), through one nerve surgery and then all the welding whilst in a straight leg brace using my left foot on the pedal of the TIG, I'm sort of proud.

I will also post photos of the way I cut the holes and the tools I used to clean up the modules inside and the tools I will be using to polish it all up.....so the thread isn't finished just yet!!!

I plan to polish this to mirror finish as I know I will be wanting to polish it up later if I don't. But before I do that, I am going to vinager run, flush and sacraficial alcohol run the column to make sure it does not leak anywhere..then comes the polishing.......guess I need to start a thread for my boiler now...... Linny has offered up his boiler to help get me to clean and run this bubbler so I can get to polish it up but his boiler has a 3" ferrule....so I got a cool idea for a 4" to 3" reducer that I'll make so I can run it on his boiler. Photos to follow.

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[Milky]

Smoooooooth welding :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks! It was a bit difficult to pick it back up again after 10 years, but I got there in the end! I had never tried welding copper before so I'm really happy with the results!

[Milky]

So I also got this today to help get into all those hard to reach places to polish.

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I have also ran out of citric acid so I need to pick some up before tommorow so I can give all parts a really good soak and clean.

I'm going to use a buffing wheel attachment to a bench grinder to do most of the polishing, and the finer points with a Dremel and so "cratex" brand polish/grinding tips. I'll put up some pics tomorrow of these.

Onto the polishing!!

[Milky]

So I got in cood and gave all of this bubbler a good citric acid soak and scrub, rinsed with water. and then started cleaning it up for polishing. Started on the PC.

I used 3M foam sanding pads in 4 different grades. I then used a buffing attachment to a bench grinder to polish it all up using some Josco buffing compound like in the kit in the previous post.

[Milky]

And I managed to manufacture this, my 3" to 4" copper reducer so I can use Linny's 3" boiler to do a cleaning and sacraficial run on this ,this weekend. I cut up the cone I made earlier in this build and flanged on the jenny roller a 3" flange and TIG welded it all together. (This way Linny can borrow Bender if he ever needs to...)

And the other pics are of some modules and the plates after a citric acid soak.

[Milky]

And here it is all assembled properly with all seals and plates onto the reducer I made, ready to be taken home for the cleaning run.

Polishing still to come.

[1 2many]

Absolutely beautiful still mate your workmanship is fantastic, loving this build. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[rumdidlydum]

:clap: well done :clap:

[Professor Green]

Wow, that is one dead sexy bit of kit.

Cheers,
Prof. Green

[WTDist]

Looks great. Are you going to try keep it shiny like others have done with a type of clear coating?