hi all :)
when i bought the old spear keg from the scrappy for the squat pot, i also bought a skinny keg with the idea of making a smaller boiler. I sometimes do small brews where i am either experimenting or just don't have enough ingredients for a larger brew.
for some reason which escapes me ( i started the project at the same time as the squat pot), i cut the top off and sectioned the rest to give me my final volume. have no idea what that volume is now.. probably about 15l :)) . i discovered the mummified remains of a mouse inside, along with a nasty stain and a whole mass of pitting. I just the bottom off with plan of repairing the pitting, and discovered that some of the pitting was holes :o .
i decided to cut a 2in hole in the pitted bottom ready for a flange after i had repaired the pitting. that was a mistake :naughty: . it was my first time welding with the tig and i had the thing set for dc+ve instead of dc-ve :angry-banghead: . couldn't work out why i kept melting the tungstens all the way back to inside the cup :oops: . i dumped so much heat into it i warped the bottom to the point of being useless. i figured i'd get some other material at some point for a new base.
here it is thus far:
well actually i finished welding it up today....but more on that later ;-)
i used a 4in holesaw to cut the hole in the top and welded on a 4in flange. the original flange looked like this:
to use the hole saw i first had to have a pilot hole. luckily i had the bit cut from a 2in hole laying about, so i welded it to the underside of the top:
there was big gaps on either side because it was welded to two flat raised sections. i clamped a piece of anneled copper plate bent to the curvature of the flange behind the gap and built up the gap with filler, then fusion welded the inside of the flange to the top and smoothed the back side of the fill with the tig :handgestures-thumbupleft: . there was a surround with handles like most modern commercial kegs. it would have made welding the flange a bit more tricky, and wouldn't have given enough clearance to put on the clamp holding the column to the flange on the keg, so i dremeled it off. i was able to use the material from the original weld holding it on to fill the shallow trench left by the dremel. i welded a couple of stainless handles on to the top so i still had something to grab.
today i finished welding the top to the sectioned bit. nothing is ever easy! first i added weld to the low spots and filed till fit up was nice and tight, then mated them together and only 1/3 of the two halves had matching curvature. i tacked it together, then backed the underside of the seam with a strap of annealed copper and welded up that 1/3. after that i had to use a luggage strap a hammer and dolly and some heat to slowly get the rest to meet up, welding each bit that matched as i went. what a pain! the copper backing worked a treat to keep the back side of the weld nice and sugar free :handgestures-thumbupleft: .
just *after* i'd finished the squat pot, a couple of 30l kegs came my way 8-} . since i already had the squat pot, decided to make one into a fermenter. i cut a 4in hole in the top, freeing up the 2in flange that was there. originally i was going to put this on the bottom of the fermenter for drainage, when it struck me it was longer than a standard 2in flange :
because of the curvature of the boiler to be, a fair chunk of the fitting would need to be removed and it may either bee too short or too little room to weld. i figured the flange from the keg would made a good flange for the element .
i know a few of you out there leave the 2in flange on the keg for a keg boiler. what do you use for a seal? the standard triclover seal is too thick.
till next post!