by bradsgonetrekkin » Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:18 pm
I've almost got all the bits now to finally start putting this thing together so thought I'd start posting instead of lurking. Apart from the cash to get all the bits my progress has been further slowed as I now have a broken ankle courtesy of a belated return to playing rugby after 5 years and a fat prop who landed on it the wrong way...
After playing with a cooling management still to start with and researching the forums on various still designs I decided to build my own vm and pot still heads to be interchangable on my old 18 gallon ss keg boiler. I've read heaps but don't have much practical experience in the actual metalworking, fitting and joining part of the still building process so please excuse me if I ask dumb questions and am a bit rough with my finishes...
The column will be around 1600mm from the 2 inch ss keg ferrule connection to the valve offtake, and will be around 2m from the keg to top of condensor head, around 2600mm total hieght above the floor.
I have mainly used copper pipe sections that I got from the local scrapyard. The main column has around 800mm of 2.5 inch pipe, then the rest is 2 inch copper. I will also have to incorporate a joiner in 50mm as the scrappie had already cut up the pipes before I retrieved them... I still need to get a 50mm tee join for the valve branch line but you can get the jist from the pics where I'm heading.
The reflux condensor will be around 200-250mm long double 1/4 inch coil (once I master the coil winding thing).
The valve branch will be 50mm reduced to 32mm close to the main column, into a 32mm (1 1/4 inch) ss fullbore ball valve, then drop down via a 90 degree bend to a 3/4 reducer and ss ferrule. The plan is to also have the liebig interchangable with the pot head via a 3/4 triclamp connection.
At this stage I think I'll due a 3/4 over 1/2 inch leibig, not sure on the exact length yet. My current element is 2200 watt, soon to be upgraded to 2400w.
I'll keep y'all posted on how it develops.
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Last edited by
bradsgonetrekkin on Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.