Newbie column build

[MX450248]

Hello everyone! I posted in the welcome thread yesterday. I'm from Ohio with a background in pipe welding and industrial chemical plant maintenance. Fractionating and plate distillation columns are the norm where I work and from time to time I have to get in them to perform weld repairs and such. These huge...some of them are 100 feet tall...columns have always fascinated me. I have been researching building a flute still for a long time now. Unfortunately I have it about 95% complete and have just now come to be a member here...I'm an avid YouTuber and Google Image learner...I have found out that there are many bad designs on YouTube through this forum.

That being said...here are pictures of the build as it progressed. I took them for my own keeping and now I'm glad I did! Let me know if you guys see anything that raises your suspicions...bad or good lol! Thanks in advance and I'm looking forward to the rest of this journey now that I am in the company of veterans!

Pictures will follow so this first post isn't a deep hole of rambling lol

[just sayin]

Welcome! Looking forward to your pictures!

[MX450248]

This is the first picture I took. The flute sections are 4" L pipe 6" long with brass tri ferrules soldered with lead free silver solder.



Picture of the dephlegmator. 6" tall with stainless water in/out. The thermometer is in a thermowell so I don't have to worry about thread leakage. 7 internal tubes 1/2" copper 4" long.



This is it set up before any solder or welding. The secondary condenser is 3" shotgun with 5 internal 1/2" tubes 12" long. The bottom bell is 8"x4" 304SS with a 316SS 4" pipe to 4" tube tri ferrule fitting.
'

[der wo]

Is the brass lead free?

[MX450248]

I had the SS sight glasses machined by a friend of mine to saddle the 4" L pipe...I got them back and they fit absolutely PERFECT!! That made fusing them to the copper SOOOOO much easier. If anyone here has fused copper to stainless with a TIG welder you know what I am talking about...copper absorbs heat like a sponge and the thermal conductivity of stainless is almost non-existent.



Welds turned out great! The sight glasses have aluminum flanges but they will never come in contact with product so that should be a non issue.



Another picture of the completed sight glass

[MX450248]

Is the brass lead free?

Yes the brass is lead free

[MX450248]

All welded up and stacked.



All polished up.



Sight glass flange clears by a few millimeters...sometimes its good to get lucky lol!!



Sight glasses installed and all stacked up

[MX450248]

This is the inside. The plates have 315 holes each. Downcombers are up 1/2" from the plate to hold liquid level. Bottom cups are soldered on to the bottom of the downcombers after I sliced 10 cuts into the bottom of the tube.



The completed column. Weeks of parts coming in and fabricating the rest of it all came to a head once it all got stacked up. The SS clamps add a great look...I think...to the overall outcome of the project. Im a metals guy at heart and having 4 different metals in this column is very visually appealing to me!

Any and all comments are welcome...let know know if I should change something or if something is better off done a little different

[pfshine]

Bang up job. Just kudos to you. The only problem I see is the parrot. The inlet should be on the very bottom so you don't have a stagnant pool of booze at the base, and make sure to drill a vent hole in the reducer after the shotty. But all and all you knocked it out of the park.

[pfshine]

Oh yeah on more thing. Does that reflux condenser have baffles or the supply tube inside directing water or anything like that?

[MX450248]

Bang up job. Just kudos to you. The only problem I see is the parrot. The inlet should be on the very bottom so you don't have a stagnant pool of booze at the base, and make sure to drill a vent hole in the reducer after the shotty. But all and all you knocked it out of the park.

Ok thanks PF! My original design had the parrot intake coming from the bottom...to be honest I'm not really sure why I went this route lol I'll change that around. Drill a vent hole into the reducer after the 3" condenser? Is that too allow air into the process as the vapor condenses into a liquid...causing a vacuum?

[MX450248]

Oh yeah on more thing. Does that reflux condenser have baffles or the supply tube inside directing water or anything like that?

No it does not...the feed and return lines terminate at the wall of the dephleg...freely feeding into the water chamber of the dephleg

[Jeffrich]

Wow! Very impressive metal working!

[pfshine]

Bang up job. Just kudos to you. The only problem I see is the parrot. The inlet should be on the very bottom so you don't have a stagnant pool of booze at the base, and make sure to drill a vent hole in the reducer after the shotty. But all and all you knocked it out of the park.

Ok thanks PF! My original design had the parrot intake coming from the bottom...to be honest I'm not really sure why I went this route lol I'll change that around. Drill a vent hole into the reducer after the 3" condenser? Is that too allow air into the process as the vapor condenses into a liquid...causing a vacuum?

Spot on my man.

With the inlet and outlet on the same side and so close together the water won't be able to exchange heat efficiently due to it being a small loop. Ideally they would be as far apart as possible to get the water to pull heat from everything along the path.

[Shine0n]

Very very nice! Now I want 4" but hell the 3" I got for free is nice as well. I'm an inside and outside machinist so I have access to alot of materials and just started cutting out my sighted sections and seeing yours has helped tremendously. Hope she runs as well as it looks.

[Shine0n]

Also, how did you attach your plates per section? I plan to solder mine to each section with the downcomer set at 3/4" high on the plate. Where did you get 1/2" was enough height on that? I was told 1/2"-3/4" on a 3" plate was sufficient but I would research that a little further. I'm sure you did but if I didn't say something and you didnt, I'd hate to see you tear It down to change after cleaning runs, sac runs ect ect.

[Hound Dog]

Sweet job! I have those sight glass lenses too. Beats the heck out of all the other rigging and messing with pieces that are used. A few buck is worth the hassle.

[raketemensch]

Holy cow, you took a bit to answer the lead-free question, and it was killing me...

That's some beautiful work,man. You should be proud.

[MX450248]

Spot on my man.

With the inlet and outlet on the same side and so close together the water won't be able to exchange heat efficiently due to it being a small loop. Ideally they would be as far apart as possible to get the water to pull heat from everything along the path.

I see what you are saying. This is a picture of the bottom of the dephleg. The water jacket is actually only 4" of the 6" total hight. The water inlet/outlet are as far apart as I can get them

[Oldvine Zin]

Nice work you have some skills!!

[MX450248]

Very very nice! Now I want 4" but hell the 3" I got for free is nice as well. I'm an inside and outside machinist so I have access to alot of materials and just started cutting out my sighted sections and seeing yours has helped tremendously. Hope she runs as well as it looks.

Thanks Shine! Man its a blessing to be able to apply your God given talent to a hobby like this isnt it?! The way I had these machined made the section glasses almost fall together. The any other way and I think it would have been very difficult to get the welds to fuse with no filler wire.

[Oldvine Zin]

[

I see what you are saying. This is a picture of the bottom of the dephleg. The water jacket is actually only 4" of the 6" total hight. The water inlet/outlet are as far apart as I can get them

[

You might have a hard time knocking down vapors with that small dephlem.

[MX450248]

Also, how did you attach your plates per section? I plan to solder mine to each section with the downcomer set at 3/4" high on the plate. Where did you get 1/2" was enough height on that? I was told 1/2"-3/4" on a 3" plate was sufficient but I would research that a little further. I'm sure you did but if I didn't say something and you didnt, I'd hate to see you tear It down to change after cleaning runs, sac runs ect ect.

I really didnt see it stated anywhere for height...everything I saw while building said 1/2" was standard liquid level to hold in each section. I was not a member here until a few days ago so I am still learning the ropes I soldered the plate to the bottom of the section bodies...here is a picture. I just tacked them in there since the plates were a very tight fit...full solder bead seemed complete overkill lol doing this you have to keep in mind that you have to make sure to clock them correctly so the downcomber of the upper one lands in the correct place on the lower one...and is square with your sight glasses

[MX450248]

Sweet job! I have those sight glass lenses too. Beats the heck out of all the other rigging and messing with pieces that are used. A few buck is worth the hassle.

I couldnt agree more...spnd a few bucks to make life easier and have a better finished product

[MX450248]

Some more pictures of the boiler and stuff








This here bugger goes right into the 2" tri ferrule at the bottom on the boiler. I thought it would be a clean install with the wire coming out of seal tight and everything being stainless

[MX450248]

[

I see what you are saying. This is a picture of the bottom of the dephleg. The water jacket is actually only 4" of the 6" total hight. The water inlet/outlet are as far apart as I can get them

[

You might have a hard time knocking down vapors with that small dephlem.

Now that I see many others I am fearing the same thing. I plan to run ice water through it to help out the little guy

[Oldvine Zin]

Now that I see many others I am fearing the same thing. I plan to run ice water through it to help out the little guy

Ice water might not be the best solution - thermal shock is an issue. My deflem uses all 6" of it's length and barely keeps with the 5500 watt element. I'm sure that with your skills you will come up with a working solution.

[acfixer69]

[

I see what you are saying. This is a picture of the bottom of the dephleg. The water jacket is actually only 4" of the 6" total hight. The water inlet/outlet are as far apart as I can get them

[

You might have a hard time knocking down vapors with that small dephlem.

Now that I see many others I am fearing the same thing. I plan to run ice water through it to help out the little guy

It should run fine at that size. I run one very close to that size but do have seven 3/4" tubes in there. I run a sump tank and it will get quite warm 190F and the return from the Deflagmater is still only cracked open. They are very efficient. In the early days when OD was developing the flute stills the belief was too big was OK but as we refined them most will agree that a little under size is better as it will react faster to adjustments during the run. Full knock down is only required during stabilization. Even then a little weeping by is just heads anyway.
I would have added a 2"ferrule connection at both ends of the product condensed for inspection but that can be added any time. Quality job. Have a ball with it.
By the way what controller are you going to use.

AC

[MX450248]

[

I see what you are saying. This is a picture of the bottom of the dephleg. The water jacket is actually only 4" of the 6" total hight. The water inlet/outlet are as far apart as I can get them

[

You might have a hard time knocking down vapors with that small dephlem.

Now that I see many others I am fearing the same thing. I plan to run ice water through it to help out the little guy

It should run fine at that size. I run one very close to that size but do have seven 3/4" tubes in there. I run a sump tank and it will get quite warm 190F and the return from the Deflagmater is still only cracked open. They are very efficient. In the early days when OD was developing the flute stills the belief was too big was OK but as we refined them most will agree that a little under size is better as it will react faster to adjustments during the run. Full knock down is only required during stabilization. Even then a little weeping by is just heads anyway.
I would have added a 2"ferrule connection at both ends of the product condensed for inspection but that can be added any time. Quality job. Have a ball with it.
By the way what controller are you going to use.

AC

Mine has 7 X 1/2" pipes...I'm anxious to see how well it'll perform. I'm following the controller 2.0 build that cranky did. SSR-40A relay with 500k potenciometer for adjustment on a 30A 2 pole switch. Running through a digital volt/amp meter just to have a good sense how different washes run at different power levels. Top it all off with a computer fan too keep temps in check. It'll be wired 220v...so I made sure the volt/amp meter was capable of 220v input for simplicity.

[MX450248]

Oh...and I even made sure the computer fan is 220v so I don't have to mess around with a 12v converter...simplicity lol