This is the story of my somewhat haphazard process. The important thing is to just keep on moving on...
Initially I was going to go the SS bowl and SS sink drain route as I had an extra SS pot from my home brewing supplies but I did not have a lid. I searched EVERYWHERE in town for an SS bowl with the right diameter for about 2 months. I had 2 SS pots I was considering using: 1 5 gal @ 12.75" OD / 12.25" ID and 1 7 gal @ 13.75" OD / 13.25" ID. No dice. I also looked for places online to buy a bowl that would fit either of my pots, but there were problems: 1) the dimensions I needed were rare, or expensive, and 2) after consistently finding that the advertised diameter did not match the measured diameter of the bowls I found in town, I had little faith in the advertised dimensions of the online bowls. I decided that I would just use a pot lid instead of a bowl. From my reading, the concavity of the bowl is most useful for pot stills as it provides some reflux; with a reflux column the lid shape hardly matters. I started searching around online for lids and quickly came up dry - it's very hard to 1) find lids for sale by themselves, 2) find lids with dimensions listed, and 3) given that I didn't even know what kind of pot I had (bought it off of Craigslist) I couldn't go to a retailer and ask for a model. All the while I was thinking about pots and lids, I continued reading through many, many build posts on HD. I decided I should work on the column and worry about the boiler later.
The first big challenge in working on the column was sourcing and sweating the copper - I had no experience. I watched a few YouTube videos and was lucky enough that a friend of mine showed me how to do some very basic soldering - one join of a small piece of 3/4" in a coupling; the entire learning process took about 30 mins, most of the time taken up by drunken babble.
My friend let me borrow all the soldering equipment he had: wire brush, torch, flux, solder, a small diameter tube cutter, some really small pieces of copper, and a small piece of emery cloth. I started looking around my local hardware stores for copper to get a feel for what was available. Answer: not much in my town. I was hoping to build a 1.5" or 2" column, either of which sells in 10' increments; I need less than half of that. Eventually I got to talking to another friend who happens to be a plumber. He was able to give me 26" of 2" and 28.5" of 1.5", and 2 2"-1" reducers and 1 2"-1.5" reducer. The 2"-1.5" reducer was for the SS drain to column connection. I decided to defer the boiler connection altogether as it depends on the boiler lid/bowl, which I still hadn't found. I carried on focusing only on the column.
I bought a foot of 1" on the cheap. Then I started fitting out my tools (I have hardly any): a C-clamp, extra torch fuel, welding gloves, hack saw, more emery cloth, a large tube cutter, a set of files, a 1/4" black oxide bit (a mistake). From my research I knew I had to use "approved" solder and flux. Turns out the stuff I got from my friend had some not so friendly contents, more things to buy. With solder/flux and all the tools in hand, it was time for my second exercise in soldering: attaching the throat to the reducers and the take off port to the upper reducer. I started with grinding out the inside of one of the reducers with a file. Once I could slide the throat through, I adjusted it to where I could measure 1oz of water around the throat and marked it with a scratch. I chose 1oz 'cause that's what Rad chose, but after re-reading his post I realized he was working with 1.5", so it might have been better to go with more capacity; guess I'll find out. Next I measured the throat to leave about an inch of space between the couplers and then cut the throat. Next I soldered the reducers and throat. I used way too much solder and it looked like crap, but the solder bled all the way through to the inside of both reducers - a good join; that's all that matters. After things cooled, I filed and sanded away extra solder and cleaned things up a bit. I drilled a 1/4 hole for the take off using black oxide bits by starting with a 1/8" and then moving up to a 1/4" with a poorly charged hand drill. It took a bit, but it worked. At this point I was just holding the copper in one hand and the drill in the other. For soldering, my "workbench" consisted of a couple of cinder blocks and some crappy 1x4s from a busted up pallet; I clamped the pipe and wood to the cinder block using the C-clamp. At the end of it all, I rested my creation in a pickle bath for the night. All in all a great start.
The next day I bought some 1/4" OD and attempted my first condenser coil. I ended up winding 3 throughout the whole process. Here they all are:
- My 3 coils.
After making the reducer-throat connection I spent a lot of time researching and thinking about the boiler connection. Luckily, while Halloween costume shopping I found a 5 gal pot with lid for $14.99 at a thrift store. I was planning on using my electric stove as a burner. In order to use the stove I would need to mind the height of my still and the placement of the column on the lid. Using a sink drain would add a few inches to the height. Placing the column in the center of the lid would mean the column would be leaning against the fan guard over my stove, and it would also mean I would have to remove or cut the lid handle (more work, bleh). More research... eventually I discovered the end cap connection discussed here: Bokakob 2" mini-still column
Up to this point I was avoiding cutting the pipes I had for the column. I only wanted to make cuts once I was absolutely sure what I was going to build. I realized that the column and the boiler connection are completely different and I could always make adapters for the boiler. After all, that's one of the great things about columns, especially the combo still - you can switch out the boiler later and even extend your column if need be. I cut the 2" pipe to 9.5" and 16.5". I know this breaks the 12:1 ratio for the packing column (which should be 24"), but I didn't have much pipe anyway and I wanted to leave enough room for the throat, slant plate, 1" or so of clearance and the condenser. I figure I can always extend the packing column later.
Knowing that the condenser I had wouldn't work for the 2", I decided to try my hand at winding a double helix condenser using this as a reference: How to wind a perfect coil condenser.
The inner coil was fairly similar to the previous wind; it was a bit more difficult stabilizing because I didn't have any of the 1/4" down the center of the curtain rod this time so I could wrap back around for the double helix. Following the description in the forum post, I wrapped the inner coil with some cardboard and used some sacrificial zip ties to hold it in place. The outer coil was much more difficult to make even coils, but eventually I finished. I snipped the zip ties and started trying to get out the cardboard. It was so stuck in there and I didn't believe a blower from a car wash would be able to get it out. So, obviously, I burned it out
- Burning the midnight coil.
- The result.
Back to the boiler connection... I spent a lot of time looking into tools: hole saws, nibblers, dremel, tin snips, drill bits, etc. I decided on a 1.5" bi-metal hole saw - I could use for drilling through the SS and the copper end cap. I couldn't find a nibbler nor tin snips, but did find several dremel tools, but I wasn't really sure what advantage they had over using a hole saw with my normal hand drill - spending more money didn't seem worth it. First thing first, I needed to drill a guide hole for the hole saw. I started with my trusty black oxide bits, thinking that I bought them for copper and SS. I spent hours on drilling a 1/8" hole through SS. Eventually, in a fit of frustration, I took a small screw driver and a hammer to the small impression (i.e. dent) I made with the 1/8" black oxide bit and managed to puncture the lid just a bit. I forced my 1/8" bit through the puncture and started rounding off the hole. It was easy enough to force the 1/4" bit through this same hole. I didn't care too much about bending the lid around the hole as the hole saw was going to cut it all out anyway.
Using my trusty cinder block workbench and my left hand and a whole bunch of "oh shit, that thing is going to hurt if it catches my finger", I held down the lid and forced the whole saw through. One side of the saw got through first, freeing the saw into the wood and causing the other side to catch the lid and thrash it around a bit. The circle cut out by the saw was about 80% complete but still connected, resembling the lid of an opened can. I took this opportunity to save my fingers and resorted to using a pair of wire cutting pliers and vice grips to remove the circle of metal. The hole isn't perfect, but who cares...
Next step was to drill a mating hole through my copper end cap. Due to the lack of a work bench this was actually more difficult than drilling through the SS lid. The 1/4" guide hole was simple enough. However, I need to brace the lid while use the hole saw as it was jumping around quite a bit. I tried a few configurations and finally came up with surrounding the end cap with 2 1x4s and the C-clamp and then sandwiching all that in between 2 cinder blocks. The handle of the C clamp pushed against the inner part of the cinder blocks, preventing the end cap from spinning. It took a good 15 minutes or so of solid drilling for the hole. It wasn't a clean hole, but who cares.
Next step was to drill 8 1/8" holes through the end cap. This took awhile and I actually broke my 1/8" black oxide bit in the process. Before breaking it, I was able to drill one hole through the lid, but it was a pain in the ass. There had to be a better way. Google helped me realize that black oxide wasn't helping me. The next day I picked up 1/4" and 1/8" cobalt bits and was able to drill the holes pretty quickly.
- My workbench.
- Using screws into the wood to keep things stationary.
The next thing I looked into was the needle valve. I found a Watts "lead free" brass valve, but on the small print said it still contains up to 0.25%:
I spent some time looking around for and considering using a SS valve. I stopped by a local shop. The guy there said he could get me a SS valve of the same type for around $60! Way too much to spend on it. I found a bunch of valves online in the $20 range. At the end of the day I bought the brass valve.
Next thing I focused on was getting my cooling system in order. I sweated together a liebig condenser for the take off port that consisted of 1 foot of 1/2" with 2 end caps. I used 1/4" OD for the take off and ran a piece of it all the way through the liebig. I used 1/4" OD for the water ports as well. I ended up using a mix of 3/4" and 1/4" tube to connect to my kitchen sink faucet, the liebig, and the condenser.
I also took another shot at winding another condenser. This time I used a guide wire for making even coils and also used several sheets of notebook paper to wrap the outer coils around. I was able to move the paper by hand by slowly unwinding the outer coil in parts and then winding it back tight. The end result was one ugly coil, but functional and no char like before.
And here's the whole rig in action during the cleaning run:
- The whole enchilada
. Nice work mate, goes to show what you can build without much stuff like a work bench, well done 
hope it makes you some nice stuff.
