Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Great score b :dance:
I cant wait to see your take on a thumper :handgestures-thumbupleft:

rumdidlydum wrote:I cant wait to see your take on a thumper :handgestures-thumbupleft:

G'day Rummy,
Got a bit done yesterday and found trying to cut this 6" without it being annealed was like pulling teeth from t-rex, :angry-banghead: anyway marked out the first reducer for the 4-6" and after annealing the pipe got it all cut out then got the pipe nice and flat for forming. As I had beat it with my rubber hammer to flatten it I annealed it again as my last jobbie.

Went for a search on thumpers this morning and WTF that one you made is the bees knees mate :happy-partydance: so now I got some idea on the way forward. Now rather than a bubble cap my old idea of a 30mm pipe coming up then going to a tee then 2 down pipes slit at the base for a dual bubble setup, then if I have enough 30 mm left use that for the downcomer. I did think eh I will need a drain and did see one on yours so thats another jobbie to do.

Anyway got the argon bottle here so the big test will be if my 3kw inverter will handle my lincoln caddy tig welding. If not time to setup that 10hp honda motor and the 5kw ST generator head so I will have the power to use the tig. I'm kicking myself for not continuing to bid on a trailer welder last weekend as that would of been a nice power plant, anyway soon I'll get a 10hp listeroid and that will be the new workhorse for power.

Cheers Bryan

G'day Guy's,
Well getting there with the thumper, went into town this morning to get somemore aqua safe solder and some plumbing for the cooling water. Went into Home hardware and they didn't have the aqua safe so I just got 4 off 1/2"bsp to 1/2" copper pipe fittings. Went off to bunnings and took that said 1/2" bsp fitting in only to find bunnings fitting are unique and don't fit the standard fittings, so with the goodies I got back to home hardware and soon got the right threaded reducers and male quick connect fittings. Also decided using my old welding helmet and magnifying glass's wasn't the best so went to BOC and grabbed one of their helmets with a 2 times lense to go in.

Anyway got home and got the internal base drilled and cut out then finally got to test the tig, I found 120 amps was a good setting so got to tig weld the 4" pipe to the base of the lower reducer. My inverter coped with the tig welder but after I finished the inverter fan was going flatout and the batteries were still on 26.1 at rest.

Now with the bubble cap does one have the cap sit flush on the plate and the slots are used or the cap raised a few mil ? I don't have the copper here to make a cap but got enough 28mm OD copper pipe here so I'll fabricate an inverted U and put slots at the end. I have enough flat scrap here to make the down comer cup too so hopefully no need to buy more copper to finish this project.

Cheers Bryan

I just had the cap flush with slots in it :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Make sure you do a few of tacks on the cap, one of mine broke now the cap somtimes goes tink tinky tink. :angry-banghead:

Anyway finally a few pic's



This is the lower reducer with the base plate in, the left hole is for the riser, the middle for the drain and the right is the down comer.




This the inverted U riser, now I found some scrap 118mm long by 32 wide so that will make around a 38mm bubble cap. As I only had a 30mm hole saw which was 3mm bigger than the pipe I just peened it out so it's a close fit for welding.





I went with 240mm for the height of the 6" and I've cut the plate out for the 4-6" reducer. Just need to anneal it then form it, I'll also put say a 35mm high 4" pipe in for the easy flange.

Cheers Bryan

Well guys getting there, with the weather depends when I do some tig work, anyway got about 8kg of barley malted and found eh it needed to be dried. So fired up the shed schooner warmer and dried it all out.

Now the next problem is grinding the molt so I'm off on a bent designing up a hammer mill using brass as the housing and a steel rotor along with a hammer blade. Yea it won't be a big hammermill but it will be my own design. Got some hardite to coat the rotor and for the hammer blade I'll treat the steel. So the big test if this works his little beast may be saleable.

Anyway on the build just got the down comer to put in then PORN if I can be bothered or just copper.

Cheers Bryan

G'day Guy's,
Well finally had some time to get this project done but as usual Murphy said allo :angry-banghead: One 4" tri clamp short as the keg triclamp went on the thumper. Tomorrow I'll go in and see how fleece want for one and get some vinegar and have a look how cheap the goon cartons are as that 30 litres of TPW is itching for the first run.

Anyway the thumper, 1-1/4" thick wall copper pipe and the bubble cap a 2-1" new reducer, filled it up after finishing it and a tad over 2.5 litres.



A pic of the still assembled and ready to go but I reckon I will make a new 3-4" reducer 75mm high to bring down the overall height. Besides making these reducers are fun and don't long to make.



As I am using gas I will install some blueboard around for a fire sheild, still go to hook up the 12 volt flowjet pump as I reckon it may even suck the boiler fluid out after priming the pump.

Anyway it has been good fun building this and more mod's to come in the future.

Cheers Bryan

That looks schmick :clap:

Great job b. I like your thumper idea. :D

G'day guy's,
Well went for a drive around the hills trying to find a triclamp with no luck at all so headed into fleece where they said they didn't have one but could get one in in 2 days so just for a laugh I asked the cost $74 :scared-eek: . I told him straight I could get one from WA in 2-3 days for a tad over $10 and in 304SS. Then I thought eh off memory I didn't get everyone at the scrapyard so off to the bridge I went. It was pretty busy there and the gal said well you know where they are so go get it yourself. Which I did and the remaining ones got stashed so if i need anymore I will know where they are. $10 for a 316SS one aint a bad price. Anyway got the 3-4" reducer cutout and made tonight which only took about 1/2 an hour including the annealing, still got the easy flanges to make and put on and that won't take long.

Then off to Aldies tomorrow for 10 litres of vinegar and a few kg's of sugar so I can get 50 litres of TPW going. So tomorrow is the day this will get it's first run so fingers crossed not too many leaks ( smiles Murphies way) :greetings-waveyellow: .

Next jobbie is getting that hammermill finished so I can crush the grain and the barley malt then onto cutting a keg to make a boil pot for doing AG. Still got enough 1/2" left to make a rapid chiller and will get around to making a DC powered stirrer for the boil pot. Got a few 24 volt truck wiper motors that will fit the bill nicely and i'll get some SS bar to make the stirrer and tig it up.

Cheers Bryan

Good job Bryan, she looks a treat.

Good luck with the run tomorrow :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Finally got around to doing the vinegar run this arvo so with 10 litres of white vinegar and 10 litres of water it took a tad over 1/2 an hour to get upto temp, first saw the first tee bubbling away nicely so fired up the water and had all 4 plates bubbling. Noticed the seal under the 3rd Tee was leaking and the clamp was fully tight so I let get to getting some out of the money piece and found that 3rd seal putting out some nice steam so shut it down and made a thicker seal. Nope that wasn't the problem but the solder joint was the source. Also found a small leak on the 2-4" reducer so shut everything down and a few repairs tomorrow then I'll fire it up again to make sure everything is sealed etc. That 30 litres of TPW I have here will be used for the sacrificial run, got my 2 60 litre fermenters bubbling away with TPW so will have a few strip runs to really get the hang of using the bubbler.

Cheers Bryan

G'day Guy's,
Well hopefully all fixed and back on the heatup so hopefully the sacrificial run will be the next

Awesome work :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Well got the run done and NO leaks at all on the hot side but has a very slow drip on the top tri-clamp to the PC but what I did find was very slow output with the RC fully fully turned off. Anyway looks like I'll have to get a high pressure regulator as the bunnings supplied one just aint up to scratch on the BTU spec's :violence-smack:

With it running on pot mode I found just the bottom plate was bubbling where the rest were just damp too, thumper was doing it's job and with a close ear one could hear it working. :music-deathmetal:

Anyway now gotta wait until that 110-120 litre of TPW is done so got a week or so to get things sorted including relocating the 12 volt pump outside as the droning noise is enough to drive a man to drink :laughing-rolling:

Now i can get back onto the little hammer mill project which I'm making for a bit of fun with the hope it will crush all that barley malt I've made.

Cheers Bryan

The slow output wouldnt have anything to do with the lak on pc clamp would it :think:

bluc wrote:The slow output wouldnt have anything to do with the lak on pc clamp would it :think:

I don't think so as it only a drip every minute or so and no lost steam as the mirror test didn't show and I did use an enginears mirror, a nice small one to get around the clamps.

Now when I say the output was slow at best it was a fast drip to light toothpick like stream, anyway I will do another steam test to ensure the still only has one output and thats out the nose of the parrot as I am using gas and I don't want to blow up my shed although it is nicely insured I do like my gear. :laughing-rolling:

My money is on a vapor leak, if it's dripping must be steaming, the thought of running on gas freaks me out %-( :scared-eek:

Any leak will drop output.
Dripping is worse than steaming.

G'day Guy's,
Spent a bit of time this morning fixing the leak problems and fired the still up again only to find it leaking again at the top PC tri clamp, so shut the still down and took the PC off only to find i hadn't filed the easy flange flat :angry-banghead: Filed both ends up and got it all back together then fired up the still and finally got a nice stream coming out. Turned off the third ring and the output flow slowed to a fast drip, fired up the third ring again and the flow increased. :happy-partydance: Had a bit of a play with the RC, with the tap about 1/2 open it goes back into reflux and closing it up the flow returns within about 5 minutes. Anyway stopped at 2 litres distilled and happy it's now working so next jobbie strip it down and give it all a good clean then onto the sacrificial run.

With the keg I'm going to tig up the 4 holes in the base of the keg as the flames sometimes goes thru then and custom make a plate to close up where the burner goes in so the flames are contained in the rim and the keg base.

Cheers Bryan