Raketemensch's Almost-No-Soldering Modular Flute Build

[raketemensch]

Almost all of my parts are in, but I'm heading out to the west coast for Christmas, so I figured I'd start a build thread to read and drool over while I'm gone.

Since I have two young boys, two bands and a more-than-full-time job, if I tried to build a flute myself from copper it would just never get done. I'm not averse to soldering, but I don't own a drill press, or a bench grinder, and while digging around the web to get prices for the tools I would need to build a flute, I thought that I might be able to find enough modular bits to build one for about the same amount of money.

After many, many nights of researching, both here and on aussiedistiller and a few other sites, like aliexpress, Amazon and eBay, I put together a materials list that would get me 90% of the way and just about clamp together. I'll need to solder the downcomers to the perf plates, and solder a 1" copper pipe to a threaded copper connector, and everything else will either clamp together (the column) or mount with nuts (the CSST dephleg). Mission theoretically accomplished.

Just about everything is here now, but a few issues popped up -- one of the sight towers was broken in shipping, and only one of the two 2" elbows arrived, but replacements for both of those pieces are on the way. I missed a 4" and a 2" tri-clamp in my materials list, and a 2" gasket and a 4" gasket (all will be PTFE). On my lunch break today I did a test fitting, and it all comes together pretty nicely, I think it'll work out pretty well.

Here's a messy shot of all the parts after the test-fitting:

IMG_6306.jpg

And here's everything organized a bit:

IMG_6308.jpg

BOM:
3x sight towers
2x 2" to 4" reducers
1x 12" stainless steel spool (dephlegmator)
4x 4" tri-clamps
3x 2" tri-clamps
4x 4" PTFE gaskets
3x 2" PTFE gaskets
4x perf plates (I plan to use 3, but they came in a 4-pack)
1x "Heating element conversion plate" (for the PC)
1x 1" NPT threaded coupler

I still need:
4x 1" copper caps (for the bottoms of the downcomers)
24" of 1" copper pipe
2x 48" CSST gas lines
plumbing stuff

I'm using borosilicate sight towers, which are usually shipped from China, but I found a supplier in LA on eBay, so shipping is much faster. I only ordered 3 of them, since I'm not going for neutral, but one of them is, as I mentioned, cracked. The shipper originally offered me a $10 refund and the "opportunity to fix it myself," but I held out, and they're shipping me a new one. The $10 wouldn't cover new glass, which was what I argued with him, but I did find a 2-pack of the corosilicate glass chimneys for $42, so I will eventually step up to 4 of them by replacing the glass in the broken one and have an extra glass chimney as a backup.

Since I don't own a drill press or a bench grinder, making the perf plates would've been difficult and and taken me forever. I ordered 4 of them on eBay, with 3/4" downcomer holes. The 3/4" holes will need a little filing, but they're pretty nice overall. They will be fitted right into the PTFE gaskets between the sight towers, so I don't have to worry about a center rod or getting the spacing between them right or trying to deal with the gap between them and the wall of the column. Lots of little fidgety Flute issues killed off right there... Here's a shot of them:

IMG_6309.jpg

I picked up a 4"x12" stainless spool for the dephleg, and I will be using a 48" CSST coil inside it, per advice from DAD300 and cranky. I will be drilling holes into the side of the spool to fit the inlet/outlet into, and using a nut on either side with PTFE gaskets to tighten them down and seal the holes.

The other problem I needed to solve was how to attach a product condenser to the 2" tri-clamp fitting at the end of the two 45 degree elbows at the top. I have utterly failed at soldering stainless, and I was at a loss for a while on how to handle that.

But then I remembered -- when I first got started I ordered a tri-clamp fitting for my heating element, but it was too deep to get the bent ULWD element through. Rather than return it, I figured I'd hang onto it in case it came in handy. Ten points to me. I also had a 1" threaded copper coupler which, as it turns out, threads perfectly into the tri-clamp module:

IMG_6310.jpg

So in the end I'll be able to just solder a 1" pipe into the threaded connector, and since I'm doing a CSST product condenser, I'll be able to just clamp that sucker on, slide the 1/2" CSST up into the 1" pipe, and be done with it.

That's the full plan up to now. I have a few items still to look up, such as how deep I want the bath to be on the plates, and how much of a gap I want between the bottom of the downcomer and the plate below it. I also need to sort out the plumbing, so I'm digging through the Flute Talk thread (AGAIN) to pull this info out.

All told I'm under $600, but I still have to pick up the CSST and the valves for the plumbing. I also don't have a pump or hoses, since I've been air-cooled up to this point, but I don't want to include those expenses into the price of the column, like I'm not including the boiler and whatnot. Most people already have their water cooling stuff worked out before they build a flute anyway.

I'll be doing more updates (as these ideas fall apart in practice), but not for about 2 weeks. It's tough to finally get all of this together and have to leave it all behind, but I really can't complain, I do understand how lucky I am to even be at this point.