My First Still Build (Stock Pot)

[Ky_backwoods]

Progress. Please no bashing on my soldering. It's my first time. Lol

[BDF]

How, may I ask, are you planning to mate your copper pipe to the lid of the stock pot?

[Ky_backwoods]

How, may I ask, are you planning to mate your copper pipe to the lid of the stock pot?

I'm putting a bowl on the lid first. But same concept when your using just the lid. I'm taking a male and female adapter and putting the male end through the washers for spacers. Then I'll put the female on the bottom of the lid and clamp the adapters together. I know a terrible explanation. I will post pics later

[BDF]

How, may I ask, are you planning to mate your copper pipe to the lid of the stock pot?

I'm putting a bowl on the lid first. But same concept when your using just the lid. I'm taking a male and female adapter and putting the male end through the washers for spacers. Then I'll put the female on the bottom of the lid and clamp the adapters together. I know a terrible explanation. I will post pics later

Something like this?

[Ky_backwoods]

Exactly like that!

[Horsecreek shine]

Worm looks good!

[dm2211]

Looks really great I will try to build something like this myself

[Danespirit]

Looks good!

Don't worry about your soldering job. It' looks like it should be ok.
For a first time try it's fine..i've seen much worse than this.
Interessting how it will perform, after a cleaning run of course..

[Ferg1]

I've got 1.5' coming out of my pot still used a stepdown bit threaded male adapter into lid street 90 into that and use a flour mix to seal.I did this cause i have 3 different lids so i just remove the male adpter from lid to lid till i find out which produces the best.Good luck

[Deezil]

sub'd

will be building my rig next week, what did you form the worm around?

Looks good!

[Deezil]

get this thing done yet?

[iwine]

When I first built my stock pot still I added a stainless bowel to the top. A 3"x12" pipe for the column to attach a lyne arm and product condensor. While your condenser is the worm line, the bowl attached will work well. I attached the bowl drilling holes about 1" apart then connecting the two with machine type screw fasteners. The gasket was made using cardboard wrapped with Teflon tape. For immediate use I opted for the pinch type clamps but later bought these for a more permanent use.

The column was attached to the bowel using a stainless exhaust collector and gasket. this was brazed to the column tube and fastened to the bowel with mechanical fasteners using the collector gaskets to seal the connection. Its worked well for me over the past couple years thus far. I also added a 2" nipple and ball valve at the bottom of the stock pot to make this a double duty pot for cooking and stilling.

hope this helps

Hi nice outfit. Where did you buy those clampes. Im getting the stuff togeather for my first buids.

[skow69]

If you ever sweated copper it is not that hard to solder stainless. I saw a thread (sorry can't find it) where a guy used a copper end cap, maybe 1.5" or whatever his column width was. He made a ring of solder, of course used the right flux, and sat the copper cap down on it, right on top of the lid with the cup side up. Then he heated the lid and the fitting until the solder melted and it dropped down. Once it cooled he drilled a large hole through the copper fitting and lid. Sorry if that sounds confusing, it was pretty simple actually. No gasket, no rivets/bolts. The desired solder/flux is Harris StayBrite #8 and Harris StayClean flux, but I have done it with Oaklely flux and silver solder also, purchased at Menards.

Edit: this thread has some pictures of something similar to what I'm saying...this guy first tried to use bolts then went with solder:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=18056

Here is the thread: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=39820.
Really good information there.