Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Looking good!

Unless your area suffers extremely hot conditions or you have a limited /small~ish water supply then 5 x 1/2" should be fine. Around .5m say and you'll have a nice cool output to suit calibration of alco meter is the aim.

For Adelaide I use 5 tubes currently but have another about.6m on a 11lt tank and on real hot days it's fine.

bt1

Thanks for that bt1.

By the sounds of it, the cooling is going to be a lot different from my 3" VM...I use a 240L wheelie bin and even that amount gets warm after a couple of hours.

In NSW, not too hot and cool water supply so the product condenser sounds adequate :D

The only way I can see an issue, is if I take the plates out and use as a pot for strip runs (one of the ideas for going fully modular)...then there may be up to 6kW thrown at it...so would like to over engineer for that purpose :think:

Yeh,

prior post...typo that tank is 1100lt

a wheelie bin aint going to cut it with a plater with 6KW..

an IBC with a radiator or cooling platform would suit I've heard IBC are fairly cheap your way.

Let us know how in any case.

bt1

Ahh thanks for the clarification bt1...1100L is a little different...I thought you meant 110L :?

As for normal use...I will only be running at the usual 3.6kW or whatever, but will have 6kW available so that's where my thinking lies...

When stripping with my 3" pot at 4800W, I have been known to just run the tap water (slowly) through and out into the garden :shifty: I don't have a problem having to do this occasionally for an hour or so...


edit: Any idea where IBC's are available cheap down this way?

few on gumtree every now and then but expect to pay about $120. I know a guy that said he gets some from gunnedah for $50 but a bit of a drive :)) But he said to me that try tire places like ones that do truck tires and big machinery. Maybe try stock places as the mollasses comes in a IBC lol might get a few 20lt drum of it to haha

Yeah I hadn't thought of that...the stock feed place here would be the go :handgestures-thumbupleft:

So the last few days managed to get some of the sight glass ports worked out, and starting to take shape.

Went round to the grandparents place to use the workshop :D

Put the 4" holesaw through my only piece of 3"


And found out of sheer luck that the diameter of the belt sander was perfect, got to get lucky sometimes!




Cut down and cleaned up a bit, ready for soldering. Most of them are a great fit.

A little mockup of the column with 4 of the ports on


I think i'm going to end up going with soft soldering on these sight glass ports...as any attempt to get a piece hot enough to silver braze will well and truly melt my soft soldered easy flanges...I have thought of heat sinks and wet towels, but don't think it's worth the risk...plus a couple of them have little gaps which are much easier to fill with soft solder :doh:

Rock on bubblers :happy-partydance:

Can I ask how you intend to flange the pictured sigh glass tubes?

bt1

looking shit hot :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bt1 wrote:Can I ask how you intend to flange the pictured sigh glass tubes?

bt1

In a vice bt1, sitting on a 4" timber cylinder (grandfather is a woodturner), using my lever flange bar...and then finish it off with a few light taps of the hammer...or easy flange depending on what your question meant :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Trying to have minimal protrusion of these ports, so have allowed some room for the flange, and a bit of fudge factor, and the tri-clamp should sit in there nicely :pray:

Well done mate, doing an excelent job.

You might want to consider flanging the window ports before attaching them. Because you have to soft solder them, I don't think soft solder will take the working and hammering.
If you can, spin up a little hardwood plug and collar.

Sorry EG, I should have clarified...

I wouldn't even contemplate attaching them before flanging, so yes that will be done first :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks though, you never know the shit that you can overlook :shock:

kk,

I'd be most keen to see a few shots of this ..This is my grief process and I need to get through it or cut off a limb which ever is easier.

bt1

Ok bt1,

I haven't attempted this yet...if it works i'll put up pics...if not you'll see something else 8-}

I'm hoping the flaring lever bar makes this painless, as I can get it flared out to about 75 degress before the hammer even touches it.

We'll see tomorrow... :pray:

Don't be sorry Brendan. I wasn't sure. I guessed you might have been attatching SS tricover ferrules and going that way.
You might want to thin your breaker down a little, due to the smaller diameter. Or you could knock up another thinner one. I little radiusing of the inside edge of the tool helps stop kinking.

And its hard to type what goes through your mind in the workshop.

BTW, I reckon you could use those column sections as axle stands, they look that tough. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Soft solder will work on them fine , another thing to keep in mind is to keep them as short as possible , makes for a better view.

subscribed and bookmarked! looking great :handgestures-thumbupleft:

also watching those sight glasses with interest

Looking real good mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: be nice to have a workshop at home like that hey :D

LESSON LEARNED TODAY: Don't flare sight glass flanges! :naughty:

So I set out today to see about putting easy flanges on these sight glass ports.

I made my 3" rings and brazed them up...




Then cut a new slot in my flaring bar to fit the 3" pipe...flared it out and...well it looked like shit :angry-banghead:

I realised that these didn't really need to strength on the 4" column modules anyway, so why not just flstten the 1/4" tube and solder it on there...and it turned out brilliant! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Notice a difference?


And I wonder which one looks more like the SS ferrule? :think:

hmm yeah good point there :handgestures-thumbupleft: