Hound's 3 Plate Column

[Hound Dog]

I started by wanting to build a bubble ball to go under my column. I had one before but did away with it when I went modular and electric. Well, I started looking into using a small pot to mount a plate in and make a ball, then I was just going to wrap copper around two 6" ferrules (since that is what I have for my boiler top) and put a plate in. Then I ran across a 24" x 6" stainless section with ferrules. I had to pick it up . Then more thinking .... Well if one plate was good, three have to be better right?
I started by taking some 2" and some sheet I had and making some caps with it.

Then I cut some plates and soldered rings at the holes.

After soldering rings at the holes that will be under the caps and using soldered caps, I did not want to melt everything soldering the caps on. I used wire to hold them in place then just a dab of solder on top to seal the deal.

Capped plates.

[Hound Dog]

I didn't get much as far as pictures building the column itself. I took 3" ferrules and ground them to fit the column. I then traced the opening to cut on the column and rough cut it with a 3" air cut off wheel. Then silver soldered on the ferrules and ground the inside of the hole smooth with a carbide bit in my die grinder. I used 6" spacing.

I began to think about how to seal the plates. I thought about soldering them in place but that was impractical. I thought about soldering a lip on the plates to make them more of a pan that I could flare the top edge out for a tight fit. Then I came across PTFE Tubing. Bingo! I split this and clipped it on the edges.

This made for a great fit.

Using CSST I made up a coil to fit in a spare section of column I had.

Cut it to fit with a coupling.

Ready to solder up with the triclamp end on top too.

[Hound Dog]

I clamped this to my boiler and added my condenser from Lulu for a product condenser.

Please ignore all the junk in the garage and the chopper on the lift behind it. Replacing seals in it too. One more project....

[Hound Dog]

I need a couple more fittings to hook up my cooling lines and I should get a first cleaning run in tomorrow.

[pfshine]

Dang. Nice work. What size boiler is that. Only reason I ask is mas rookie did 6" on a keg and said it sucked the alcohol way to fast.

[Hound Dog]

It's 20 gallon. It's the first and only boiler I've ever made/used. I want to run low wine runs, hoping 15+ gallons at 35% won't run out. Never ran any sort of CM before so I will have to learn.

[pfshine]

Ahh. There ya go. 20 should do you fine.

[Hound Dog]

Question for you CM/Flute guys, should I have a thermometer anywhere?

[pfshine]

I don't have one anywhere but the boiler. Other guys have them everywhere. You can run it just fine without but you get more feedback and I information with them. It's all a personal choice really. I run all of my bubblers fine without.

[shadylane]

Question for you CM/Flute guys, should I have a thermometer anywhere?

I'd have two thermometers.
1 in the boiler liquid and the other in the vapor path above the reflux condenser.

[Hound Dog]

I appreciate the input guys. I am accustomed to a LM and running that I rely heavily on temp readings. There is space in RC section above the coils. Perhaps I will put a port in there.

[Kegg_jam]

I got one in the boiler and one in the take-off for a digital parrot kinda thing.

Was thinking I'd rather have it below the deflag but haven't got around to it.

[raketemensch]

I don't have a thermo anywhere on mine, but I wish I had one above the RC.

That's some beautiful work,man. Your PC looks like should be in a Ricola ad.

With a 20-gallon boiler and a 6" column you won't have to run too often, eh?

[pfshine]

I done forgot about this. Have you run this yet. If you have how did it go?

[cranky]

Nice work Hound Dog,
I have a thermo just before the bend to the PC, I don't always use it but like it when I am using the parrot and trying to drag the hearts out and compress the tails as much as possible.

[Hound Dog]

I done forgot about this. Have you run this yet. If you have how did it go?

I had run low on my regular stock of vodka (got to keep the wife happy first!) So I threw a bubble ball together and ran my column for some stock. Now I can get back to this project.

I ran a cleaning run with some feints and found a tiny leak at one of the sight glass joints. But I was not keeping the plates loaded. I was concerned that my seals on the sides of the center and top plate were leaking and not quite even as I had difficulty installing the tree. I am going to work on filing them for a better fit. I have a wash finishing up right now of raw sugar for a rum. I also have an order coming from Sugar Daddy for a Panela wash and one more site glass kit since I used one on my bubble ball. Once I strip these rum washes down I will give it another go. I can even add the bubble ball (which is really just a 6 inch single plate section soldered together) for a fourth plate if I want.
I will have a full charge of low wines also so I can hit it with more power to see about loading it. During that cleaning run, I just put a smaller charge in it and ran the bottom element. With a full charge I can throw the heat to her withboth elements and really see what happens. It will take a couple more weeks.

[Hound Dog]

There is a problem I didn't really notice before, the top and bottom of the section of pipe where the ferrules were welded on are slightly thicker. So while the plates are a good snug fit to slide in the top, once in the pipe, it opens up a bit and there is a gap around the sides. I am not sure how to deal with this.

[WIski]

You can cut a thin slice of pipe the same diameter as your column and then nip a small 1/4" chunk from the circle. This will give you a compressible ring you can slide into the column and solder in place. The plates will fit nicely on the shelf and seal perfect.

[Hound Dog]

Ok. I said screw it. Gave up on the nice stainless column. I had some heavy copper sheet so I rolled it into a tube and put ferrules on both ends. I then sanded the edges of the plates to fit in the copper tube and just soldered everything in place. Took the sight glass ferrules off the old one and soldered them on the new copper column. I have to do a cleaning run this weekend then load 'er up and see what happens. I have the single bubble section I can put under it too if I want a fourth plate.

[Swedish Pride]

purty indeed

[raketemensch]

Is that 6" to 4" to 2"? She's beautiful.

[rgreen2002]

MAN did she polish up nice. Looks great Hound Dog.

[Hound Dog]

Is that 6" to 4" to 2"? She's beautiful.

6 inch (guess a little smaller because it fit inside 6 inch ferrules) with plates and 3 inch sight glasses, 3 inch with CSST coil for RC on top of that, 2 inch stainless sections to shotgun.

[raketemensch]

Huh, I like the way you handled the entrance/exit of the SS tubing on the dephleg. Could you give us a detail shot of it?

[Hound Dog]

Huh, I like the way you handled the entrance/exit of the SS tubing on the dephleg. Could you give us a detail shot of it?

Sure,

Just soldered around the CSST to seal it up and added sharkbite fittings so I could disconnect the water lines easily.
I also soldered on a female threaded fitting that I screwed a piece of PTFE rod into. I then drilled it to future my thermometer probe. I have the same setup on my LM rig.

[Hound Dog]

Did my cleaning run today. Everything went well. Plates loaded nicely and the new shotty handled the load. Pulled it apart and stripping some rum down now. On the last half gallon and am going to wrap it up for the afternoon. I will need to take my extra needle valve to Depot and see about getting the fittings needed to place it in line for the deflag. It can knock it all down but the ball valve lacks the control needed to tune the water flow.

I have to strip down some more raw sugar wash then some Panela wash. After that is where I plan on really testing out the plated column and see how the rum goes through it. Mixed up some sweet feed to run after that.

[Hound Dog]

One batch of Panela wash getting stripped now.

I already have some raw sugar wash stripped down.

I have one more batch of Panela to strip but will hold out a bucket of wash to add to the low wines for my spirit run with the three plater. That's for next week though.

[Hound Dog]

Finally getting around to my first spirit run! I actually having t on top of my bubble section so I am running 4 plates. I put a needle valve in the line to the deflag for control but I see it restricts the flow quite a bit on its own. With a straight ball valve I was able to run both elements (5500w ) wide open and no water got by. Now doing a spirit run I am at half per on my top element and I still get a little bypass to the shotgun. Oh well, I'll let it drip and consider it the fores takeoff.

All plates are loading fine. I will play a bit to he through heads takeoff then see if I can find a sweet spot.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Very cool build.
I'm just seeing this thread for the first time. I liked the way you matched your old PC angle to the rake of your springer front end on the shovel.
I made a sheet copper tube flute, but it's nowhere near that pretty. Lots of good info in this thread, glad I found it.

[Hound Dog]

Thanks MCH. Still ding the run now. Pulled off about three gallons so far. Trying to keep my take-off temp around 180. Not sure I should pay that much attention to the temp but l am used to a LM where my takeoff can control the he'd temp easily. This is not quite as easy.