Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Firstly, i think I'd like to say a big F you to the bright spark who thought they'd post the dimensions of primus glass's the other day and really kicked this project into gear.
Another big F you to all the people here who fuel my desire to pursue alcohol that exceeds anything you can buy. Lastly a big F you to all the information on this site that makes me think it's possible! Really consiterate of you all to keep me awake at night thinking about it, fighting with the missus about it, spending time in the shed doing it! :violence-smack: :laughing-rolling:
I've made the Pot a few months ago with a 3" PC @ 500mm long and 7 x 10mm internal tubes. I also recently made a little 3" RC.
so...the plate section. This is going to be a 4 plate bubble cap primus glass bubbler. The primus glass will be 4" and the rest 3, so i'm not sure what to name it? 3 or 4. Anyway, not to worry. This is going to be a bit different. Because i'm on such a tight budget and i couldn't for the life of me find any copper plate, I'm going to use stainless plates.

* 1 x 2" bubble cap
* 38mm riser
* 3/4" downcomer with a 1" cap on it.

i'm hoping it's not going to be too challenging to silver solder copper to stainless. A bit of a practice and i should have it down pat. anyway, i guess some pictures are in order.
First I roughly cut out 5 plates. I center punched one, then with my little circle drawing tool, went to town drawing circles all over it. centerline for all all thread. Center for riser, center for DC, where the glass sits. there was circles everywhere. Then i stacked them, clamped them, and went to town with a drill bit. I started bolting them as i drilled them to make sure they didn't move at all.
The top one with the center of it punched, i drilled out and welded on a 3" ferrule to clamp the RC to.
so in reverse chronological order...

Got my mate Scotty the plumber with his flash pipe cutters to come over on Saturday to help me cut the copper up over a few stubbies and some chops on the barby. Still building is such a social thing.


Shortly after that, my mate Josh the Welder called to say he'd finished welding up the last bits on the boiler, so i grabbed another stubby and walked over to Josh's. We have a good relationship. I do all the dumb stuff, like cutting grinding and drilling, and he does all the smart stuff, like sticking it all together for me.
It has a 3" still mount, 4" fill port, 2 x 2000w elements, to be upgraded when i get 15A in my shed. I fired her up last night with some water and holey moley compared to what i'm used to, it goes like a rocket!

nice one. i think the 3" RC will be fine.
If you throw 2400W at it it might not fully reflux but you can just lower the power so it fully refluxes to load the plates and equalize. then when your ready to start collecting slowly turn the power up, like power controlled instead of cooling management.
Its what i plan on doing when i make my 4x4" sections and use my 2" RC.

I think it will be a mean rig :handgestures-thumbupleft:

and i would call it a 4" as that is what the column will be, maybe 4" bubbler with 3" RC :handgestures-thumbupleft:

well, it really only has to handle 2000w, not 2400. So assuming it can do that, then bugger the power controller. I'll run it as per mac's running a bubbler the easy way.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2681

maddogpearse wrote:well, it really only has to handle 2000w, not 2400. So assuming it can do that, then bugger the power controller. I'll run it as per mac's running a bubbler the easy way.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2681

arnt you making a keg in above pics with a couple of elements ;-)

So, once your column is up to temp and in full reflux just slowly close your reflux valve until you get a drip or two every second, this is how I get rid of my fore shots while leaving the column in 99.9% reflux mode for around 15 to 20 minutes.

mine with water flow on full with 5 1/2" tubes cant do this. it still comes out at a decent speed. not sure how the 3" will go but for me to do a small drip i will need to do 3/4 power then power up.

i notice while im in full reflux the fores seem to pass through the RC on a slow drip and this is with the water out of the RC cold still.

either way im sure it will work.

to get the 2.5L/h (might make it hard to do fores) try stripping one wash and adding it to another un-stripped wash to bring ABV up making it require less power making it go faster and having larger hearts cut :handgestures-thumbupleft:

or a power controller that can maybe make it 3kW and reflux a lot ;-)

WTDist wrote:

maddogpearse wrote:well, it really only has to handle 2000w, not 2400. So assuming it can do that, then bugger the power controller. I'll run it as per mac's running a bubbler the easy way.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2681

arnt you making a keg in above pics with a couple of elements ;-)

Yep, 2 x 2000w elements. So run her up to temp on 4kw, then unplug one.

WTDist wrote:mine with water flow on full with 5 1/2" tubes cant do this. it still comes out at a decent speed. not sure how the 3" will go but for me to do a small drip i will need to do 3/4 power then power up.

vapor speed will be a lot harder to slow down in yours being 2" I assume? With a 4" column in mine it should be reaching the RC at a fairly lazy pace under 2kw....i think...

2kW on full power in a 2" column is same vapor volume as a 4" but will be faster. however its the rate at which it passes through the RC and the surface area of the RC that makes it effective.

after some calcs i think you will do better than me :handgestures-thumbupleft:
your area is 2.4 times bigger so it wont shoot through as fast. and your surface area is 1.2 times bigger. so bonus again :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Im interested to see how it goes

The mock up gets me jacked up! :music-deathmetal:

You must have paid someone to do it your bench is far too tidy :teasing-tease:
Nice work madog i bet your itching to get it going :handgestures-thumbupleft:

welded all the caps on

then gave them a trim up with the old tin snips

then used a hole saw to knock a hole in this bit of pine, lined it with rubber and jammed my cap in there to slot it. worked well. it's pretty hard to clamp a bit of copper pipe...

and here they all are, ready to silver solder into the plates.

Looking awesome :handgestures-thumbupleft: keep the pics coming :text-coolphotos:

So I think I've got my first plate section done. DC will be stainless on the first one because I thought it could be really tricky to solder it. Just got to burn her up ;)

:laughing-rolling:

I was wondering about this build a few days ago, nice to see its still moving along :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Good start like ya cap looks good nice and neat :handgestures-thumbupleft:

WTDist wrote:
I was wondering about this build a few days ago, nice to see its still moving along :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Haha I walk into my shed every day and wonder the same thing WT! Pull your finger out mad Dog!

Might not have my proportions quite right. With packed section it stands at 2.6m high haha

looking good man. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
had a run yet to determine speed ? its a 4" column with 3" RC right?
got your seals yet?

Nah ive been a bit slack, so I'll have to put in a 5SD order tomorrow morning. I just wanted to throw it together to see how it looks.

So I silver soldered risers caps and down comers to the plates last night. It appeared to have done a good solid job, but it warped the stainless. No biggy I said, I'll get them trued up again, but as it cooled down, they all cracked off. Anyone had much to do with joining copper and staino?

What Flux are you using?