Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey guys hows this for a thought. Have heard horror stories of condenser coils collapsing, impossible to remove salt etc, etc.
Was watching a doco on how a trombone is made and they use the technique of filling the tube with water and freezing. Once frozen they bend to the desired shaps without deformation of the pipe.

This got me thinking that this may work with a condenser coil or other copper bends and obviously when the ice melts all is good and no irritating salt to remove or crimped/ collapsed pipe :D next coil or bends I do will be giving this a try :handgestures-thumbupleft: :think:

i had lots of issues with winding a double helix in 3/8 annealed copper. I dont know why i had so many issues but it just kept kinking and i tried every trick i could.

I tried water. Bashed the end of the copper closed both ends and filled with water fully. It still kinked. It must have expanded the walls of the copper along its entire length just enough to allow it to kink. I ended up doing salt, it came out eventually.

Freezing sounds worth a go. As long as it doesnt split the walls when your trying to work with it.

haze wrote:i had lots of issues with winding a double helix in 3/8 annealed copper. I dont know why i had so many issues but it just kept kinking and i tried every trick i could.

I tried water. Bashed the end of the copper closed both ends and filled with water fully. It still kinked. It must have expanded the walls of the copper along its entire length just enough to allow it to kink. I ended up doing salt, it came out eventually.

Freezing sounds worth a go. As long as it doesnt split the walls when your trying to work with it.

It shouldn't split if you allow room at the ends for expansion :think:

After a heap of fun trying to coil 1/2" copper to fit into a 3" SS tube, tried compacted sand... Kinked tried with nothing Kinked.... Ended up using a spring bender that goes over the OD of the pipe... worked a treat.... Wound the copper around a 40mm pipe and got enough turns. Just turned out the reflux still I was making off a pdf I saw years ago aint worth a dose of salts so all that coil winding for nothing...

How big is your freezer? :think:

sam_and_liv wrote:How big is your freezer? :think:

Have a chest freezer but if you fill a coil of tube it might be ok :think:

I don't reckon it would work anyway, ice will be a solid block and not move with pipe without cracking and causing gaps for it to kink.

Sand/salt will move with the pipe and keep it filled uniformly.

I can't say it wont work as I have never tried it, however I have serious doubts. Like sam said, the brittle nature of ice will not work in your favour, also the moment you take the tube out of the freezer the ice will start to warm up and melt. Another thing to consider is as you bend the copper in generates heat inside the copper itsself, that will make your ice melt even faster.

Don't let us naysayers stop you, everyone thought Galileo was crazy when be said the Earth revolved around the Sun. :handgestures-thumbupleft: If you haven't tested this by the time I go back to work in a couple of months, I will get some scrap copper and try it my self.

Always use very dry fine sand. Tap to ensure tube is full. You can re-aneal the copper with the DRY sand still inside.

sam_and_liv wrote:I don't reckon it would work anyway, ice will be a solid block and not move with pipe without cracking and causing gaps for it to kink.

Sand/salt will move with the pipe and keep it filled uniformly.

Yeah was thinking that but hey saw a doco on it and thought it might have promise. All I can do is try when I need to bend more copper :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I think I'll give this a try with some 1/4 inch tubing. My freezer (my garage or anywhere on my property outside my house) is expected to be well below freezing temps most of the week. I won't have to take my frozen copper tubing out of my freezer to work with it. I won't have to worry about it thawing and going soft. I'll let yawl know how it works.

Rocket Socks wrote:I think I'll give this a try with some 1/4 inch tubing. My freezer (my garage or anywhere on my property outside my house) is expected to be well below freezing temps most of the week. I won't have to take my frozen copper tubing out of my freezer to work with it. I won't have to worry about it thawing and going soft. I'll let yawl know how it works.

Cool be keen to know how it goes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Smbjk.
I recon the Idea would be great for a single tight bend.....whip it out of gje freezer bend it quick ...job done ...but for forming a long condenser coil where you would normally spend a good hour with it...hmmm

Yummyrum wrote:Smbjk.
I recon the Idea would be great for a single tight bend.....whip it out of gje freezer bend it quick ...job done ...but for forming a long condenser coil where you would normally spend a good hour with it...hmmm

Supose this could be the like myth of the ice bullet :laughing-rolling:

It worked very well with 1/4 inch tubing. Not the prettiest coil I have ever seen but it is a coil with no kinks. All temperature references are in Fahrenheit.

I put the tubing in a 5 gallon bucket and slipped a hose loosely over one end. turned on the water and let it run until the air bubbles stopped coming out the other end of the tube. I straightened out about 6 inches of each end of the tubing. The tubing was hung in my garage with the open ends pointing up. After hanging in sub freezing temperatures for 20 odd hours there was an icicle about 2 inches long poking out of each end of the tubing. The temperature was around 5 degrees above zero. I proceeded to wrap the tubing around a 3/4 inch dowel. Wearing well insulated gloves and working in my cold garage, it took me about 20 minutes to wind a double coil about 8 inches long. I started using a spring tubing bender. I made about two turns around the dowel and decided to ditch the spring bender. If the tubing flattened any, I can't see it. The spring bender slipped right off without any binding.

I used 1/4 inch type UT tubing. Without the ice inside, the tubing flattened significantly even using the spring bender. I have no idea how this method would work using larger diameter tubing. I don't care to speculate either. It worked like a charm for me and I would not hesitate to wind another coil using this method. I would even consider starting with a 5/8 inch dowel.

:clap: awesome mate well done!!!!!

when I made mine a couple of years ago I filled with water and froze, did a pretty good job but had to work quickly
I think from memory I used a keg post to wrap around