4 Inch Hybrid 2 Stage Dephleg

[acfixer69]

Funny it hit me the same way. I have been thinking about a new condenser since I bump up to the 2 x 4500w elements. I want to push it but can not with the condenser I have.
AC

[Sungy]

I just had to re-read this from the start. That multiple liebig dephlegmator is something else,very nice indeed - as an alternative product condenser it has great potential. Seems to me you are definitely pushing the boundaries between architecture and what we do.

I already have more condensers than stills, and now you have me just itching to build another one that I don't need.

Functional art Can't fault it. As for the cooling tower it is nice. What sort of noise levels are you getting off the fans?

The Broan exhaust fan I scooped the blower out of was rated at 200 CFM and 6.5 Sones. Thanks for the positive feedback.

[Prairiepiss]

The cooling tower is great. I love it.

[ThrownOlive]

This is a really cool build. I've been trying to think of a way to build a shotgun product condenser without putting 18" of 2" copper into it. I've got a ton of 1/2" and 3/4". Some of that plus a few other bits and I'd bet I would work!

[Sungy]

So here is my completed cooling tower.

The tin work always draws blood. Pointy little pickers. Any way that being said the tin is done. The piece of 5 inch vent pipe is left over from a job. It will stretch to 10 feet or so. The bottom panel is sloped to the front and to the left to aid in draining. The fitting at the bottom is custom drain fitting I made. I took a 3/4 swt x mip and a 3/4 swt x fip fitting. The female fitting had a nice nut shaped end so I cut it off to make a nut to go on the male threaded fitting. Next I took some scrap copper sheet and drilled a hole just big enough for the male threaded fitting to fit into for the first washer. Repeat that hole a second time for the other washer. place one of the pieces of copper with the hole onto the male fitting half the way down the threads and solder into place. Take the other scrap copper piece with the hole in it and align it up with the nut you made from the female fitting and solder them together. After every thing is cool thread your nut with the flange soldered to it onto the male fitting until both bottom out then grind them both down to a 1/4 inch wide together. When done place a round hose washer between your too new flanges and you have a fine looking drain fitting

As you can see I used red high temp silicone for the seals. i got it in every seam then screwed every thing together and spread another bead into the corners and sides filling all gaps. Once this is all set up I will water test the seals and if tight will foil tape over the silicone so it is not so offensive to look at.

[Sungy]

So My tower is finally completed.I sealed it up and added a window in the front so I can observe its operation. Plus it looks cool watching the water splashing around.

Here is a close up of the bench testing I did looking for leaks.

I love the look of the window. Final testing will be done next weekend. This tower will be mounted on the wall above my 45 gallon barrel.

[mash rookie]

You wont know what to watch. The cooler or sight glasses on your flute. (was this a flute thread?) Nice work. Let us know how it performs.

[ThrownOlive]

Wow. Very Cool.

[Sungy]

So I decided to open a new thread for the cooling tower build.

Cooling Tower Project

The final out come from this project located on that link.

I finally completed the jig for my flanges on the 4" copper.

That steel plate is 5/8 inch thick the bolts are 3/8 diameter x 1 3/4 long, grade 5.
A friend had the plate hole cut for me at his work with a water jet machine ( I think).
I drilled and tapped the threads into one side of the jig the other side is just a 7/16 hole.
drilling the holes was a bitch. This is some seriously hard steel.

The plate then is held in a vice. This flange (I made it without the jig) will be reworked to fix the unevenness of my first attempts.The bolts are just a bit long so Im going to grind down an 1/8 inch off them. (easier to grind the bolts down that to make threaded hole deeper.)

Sorry it took so long to get the jig made but Im not a machinist.

[Maxime]

Pretty nice thread, thanks a lot for sharing it with us.
Could you tell us how your jig works ?

Your doing some pretty clean work, good job

[Sungy]

Could you tell us how your jig works ?

I made it out of hardened tool steel. Just because it was available and a friend could laser cut it for me on a cnc machine. The 2 halves bolt together very tightly around the 4" pipe. I place the jig 3/8 " from the end of the pipe (that you have already heated to soften it) Then this goes into a bench vice. Then like all other flange techniques its down to the ball peen hammer and some will power. Gently work around the flange till it is at a 90 and your done. nice thing is that all flanges come out square.

[Sungy]

After some inspiration and a lot of research im finally back at it. The shop is not heated so mid winter building was not happening. I have made a lot of flanges and still have many to go. h
Here is how I do it.

I measure 3/8 inch from the end of the pipe and mark it on 3 sides. I position the jig over the pipe and tighten the bolts down.

After everything is tight I place a piece of 4 inch abs pipe (split it length wise and spread it apart to slide it on.) around the copper pipe and clamp in my pipe vice.
I then heat the copper pipe to soften it.

After hammering the edge of the pipe ( from the center swing to the out side of the pipe). Try not to hit it at the point where it bends but at the very edge.Once you have a 45 degree bend in the lip of the pipe flip your hammer over and use the flat side to flatten the flange.

I now have a flat flange with the edge slightly thinner than the center of the flange and a bit of a wave to it.

I found an old railway spike and ground down the end to make a blunt chisel. I use this to fine tune the edge.
Now we have the basic flange. Not pretty but functional. At this point the flange will be 1/8 inch to big for the clamp to fit properly.

looks like I have to continue this in a few posts.

[Sungy]

At this point I have changed things up a bit. Here is what you will need next.

I have polished the out side of the flange in preparation of the next step. Building up the flange thickness. I place the flange on top of 3- 3/8 nuts, and then place the gear clamp around the edge of the flange. The nuts space the flange up from the steel tabletop and the gear clamp will retain the molten solder.

When all is set up I coat the flange with solder paste.Heating the pipe until the pipe melts the solder ensures that the joint will have a good bond and no air pockets. You are trying for a 1/8 inch thick puddle of solder against the pipe. Wipe all excess flux off. After cooling it will look something like this.

Now I can begin to sculpt the contour of the flange with these tools.

The pulley is a 4 inch pulley and fits nice inside the pipe. When in the vice it gives a solid place to rotate the pipe on and work the grinder.

With all the saftey gear on ( glasses and heavy gloves.)its time to grind the flanges to the correct diameter. I make mine at 4.5 inch diameter. After Im satisfied with the diameter I will then grind down the contour by holding the grinder in one hand and resting that hand on the vice for stability. I gently rotate the pipe flange and gently grind the profile a little thicker than wanted so that I can Finnish the profile with by hand a file for better control.

ok gonna have to make a one more post to show the rest of the pics..

[Sungy]

Now I have a flange and after some hand filing of the profile I have this.

Now on to the flange face. Its back into the ABS sleeve to protect the pipe while i clamp it into the pipe vice. With a large medium grit file work the face to be completely flat. I check to see if it is flat by holding both ends of the file and scrubbing the file across the face of the flange sideways. this will scratch the pipe in one direction. repeat this at 90 degrees from the stroke you just did and see if all the flange has the scratches in the new direction. When flat polish with fine sand paper and steel wool.

And thats how I made all of these.

I am still working on there 4 inch flanges. Then plates, sight glasses and the other stuff I cant think about yet.

[emptyglass]

Nice work sungy. Noting beats a wont be beat attitude, seriously good stuff.

[Sungy]

Got some more work done on the plates and flanges.Notice the plates are two different sizes. I also got the sight glass extensions hammered out. Lots of flanges to finish up.

Here is a close up of the fixing rings used to support the smaller plates (it is a 1/4 inch strip of 4 inch pipe. cut 1/2 out of it aprox. and solder back together. slope one side to help identify top / bottom). The larger plates are sandwiched between the flanges of the two sections.

And here is a top view showing the plates installed on top of the fixing rings inside the column.

More to come in the next little bit..

[Sungy]

Had some more time on my hands. I backed up my sight glass port flanges with Silfos 15 % silver. This is because I wanted the high melting temp and strength that the material provides. The column ( 4 inch flanges ) I used 95/5 solder because its cheep and the column is 1/8 inch thick type L to begin with.

The left section and the right section will give me a nice 2 plate still. For a neutral I will run 6 plates. This construction makes it possible to stack up anything from 1 to 6 plates. The little reducer is for my parrot that hasn't been built yet. Just one more thing to add to the list. I'm planning on making some trim rings to sandwich the sight glass with. They are simple easy flanges with silver 15% backing. As stated before it is very strong and will greatly help in stopping flanges from flexing and yet be very thin to aid in fitting into a tri clamp. Most of the flanges need to have a final polishing to remove file scratches. Next up on the ajenda folks is the dreaded plates.
Stay tuned for more...... Sungy.

[Uncle Jemima]

This thread just goes to show it really is more about the process than the product with this hobby. You could have bought high quality booze or any number of premium stills for less than your time and skill is worth along with the material. But what fun would that be? That cooling tower blows me away. Awesome designs all around in here. Thanks for sharing them with us.

[Sungy]

Thanks so much for the comments. And yes I do love working with copper. The construction of most of the parts is complete but fine tuning and possibly some engraving. That all depends if I can learn how.
Bogey has a great talent I want to learn more about. His work has been my inspiration to complete this build. Here is a link to what I mean.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 16&t=36857
His work is Absolutely Awesome! Hopefully with some practice I can figure out just how to incorporate this technique into my new creation.

[Sungy]

The Six Inch Rum Ball

Out in the shed today and made some headway on the rum ball module. I started by loading a 4 inch piece of ttype L 4 inch pipe into my easy flange jig with 1.25 inches of overhang. After heating it of course. Pounded this into a 45 degree flange.

i re heated the copper and place another 0.5 inches of pipe overhang in the jig. the picture illustrates what I mean. I worked the center to the edge of the pipe at this point until it looked like this.

I then rolled the edge very gently over the edge of a steel 5 inch pulley I had laying around.
Next up was the side of the rum ball. For this I used a piece of 1.5 inch pipe. It was 20 inches long and I cut it length wise. Into the fire she went and when hot I pried it apart a bit with a shovel. I let it cool a bit and worked it over the edge of a 0.5 inch thick plate of steel that was clamped into my vise. back into the heat for a bit and onto a flat plate of steel to be hammered into a flat copper sheet that measured 5 inch x 20 inch. Wrapping this around a piece of 4 inch pipe gave me a starting point for the six inch side walls.

And finally the top half assembly is roughed out.

There is still plenty of fiddling around to get the fit just right but my arms are to tired for that today.
But at least you get an idea of what it will look like when complete.

[myles]

That is real nice. Do you have (or anyone else?) a guide to how much you can expand a bit of tube? 4" to 5" or 6"?

I usually insert a tube into a flat sheet, but that method of expanding the tube out into a cone is a nice alternative option. It is going to be an impressive bit of work when completed.

[Bushman]

Very nice tutorial, after I finish my remodel downstairs I am going to have to start playing around with some of this stuff. Myles I would love to see a picture of all your experiments and work you've done, in my mind you must have one of the largest man caves of any member here on HD.

[Sungy]

I have made a second 4" to 6" flared adapter. So far I have learned they turn out better if your flair is made in stages. The first at 1" and the second at 2". I have made 6 1/2 inch no problem. I think if I worked it more I could get it up to 7or more inches. The copper (type L) is still fairly thick after flaring on the two adapters (maybe half its original thickness of 1/8 inch )
Next is to make a six inch plate for this bad boy.

[Sungy]

here is a quick pic of the rum ball part of my build.

I was working out the dents in the 6 inch column trying to get it a little smoother. the bottom flair adapter is now streched out to 6 1/2 inch and is ready for the lip to be formed on the edge. This monster plate is next. Then I can make final fitting and solder it together. More sight glasses..just what I wanted to do.....

[Sungy]

I have to apologize for not posting or completing this build. The last 6 months have been devastating for my family and me. The passing of my father after a long hospital stay, my 2 year old cat passing from crystal in his urine, my daughter was very sick but thankfully recovered. I split my head open and requires 6 staples to seal me up. There was a huge storm and I was hit by a falling tree branch and broke some ribs and to top it all off I had to put my best friend my dog to sleep because he was riddled with cancer. All in all stressing me out and depressing me the point where building was impossible. Although still sad life goes on...

So in the end Im back. I have had lots of time to think about this build and have made some progress. The plate design has been finalized and will include 12 penny valves. The new valve design will center the valves in the valve plate holes. Im planning to take 3/8 copper pipe and flair the end then cut it to 1/2 inch in length. This post will be soldered to a penny. The plate holes will be 7/16 diameter. When the assembled valves are installed into the plate they will self center in the holes. The downcommers are 3/4 inch and the traps will be soldered onto the bottom of the plates causing them to be the lowest part of the plate surface which should make the traps self priming.

On another front I have been lucky enough to get 4 kegs donated to me. A friend cleans out rental properties after the students leave university. He came across the kegs and tried to return them to the beer store for deposits. These kegs are from a micro brewery that sold them directly to the students. Then the micro brewery closed for good. No refunds for these and I guess they are legal. 1 keg is all stainless the other 3 are stainless with plastic top and bottom. Not sure what to do with the plastic coated ones I started to remove the top plastic around the outlet valve on top. then after removing the valve and cutting a 4 inch hole I welded a copper 4 inch easy flange on. I now have a really cool 4 inch fermentation keg. I will post some pics later.

[Sungy]

So here are some pics for you. Sorry I didnt take photos during the keg mod but I may make up another one and take photos.

The valve on the left is from my 3 inch build and is there for comparison. The right valve is still in construction. once complete it will have a method of holding the valve into the plate so it wont fall out.

the coupling is on this plate to represent the downcommer which will be 10 millimeters tall and flaired on top. The 1 inch cap will be soldered to the bottom of the plate and there will be a 1 inch hole above the cup.

[Sungy]

I spent the day out in the shop with a few beverages. The creative side of me was happening and I got the 6 plates made and a dozen valves cranked out. Only 5 dozen valves left to make.

As you can see there are three different plate designs. The top plate is in the column section and does not have a trap cup. The other two plates pictured are for the mid of the column. you can see that some plates will be installed inside the column and some will be installed at the joints between column sections and therefore have a wider edge to the plate. You can now see what I was talking about with the traps being suspended below the plate.

[Sungy]

Got to spend a little time in the shop this weekend so I thought I would do a small pictorial of the valve making process. The penny's are dated before 1986, as after that the copper content of the penny's drops. The fist thing is to ream the pipe then flair the pipe.

Cut off the flair you just made.

After I made a dozen flairs i took some 14 gauge copper wire and bent a U into it with the legs being 1/2 inch long. Then layed it all out for assembly.

I cleaned the penny's with a wire wheel in my drill and held them down with a finishing nail set. A small amount of solder paste on the flair and onto the jaws of the vice.

I dropped a 1/4 inch long piece of solder into the hole and hit it with the torch to make the first part of the assembly. The ends of the copper U are dipped in solder paste and inserted into the hole and another piece of solder is inserted into the hole.

Hit that with the torch and your done.

[Sungy]

And here is 24 valves I made Sunday afternoon. Only 4 dozen to go.

I plan on dipping them in a bath of coca cola for a day to clean them up. As I recall that was what we did as kids to make penny's look new.

[wv_cooker]

Distilled Vinegar will do the same thing and won't be as sticky and messy as cola.