Spent yesterday making a parrot for my pot still. Fun little project and I made it out of parts I already had laying around. The funnel was made from scraps left over from building my still. To make the joint between the funnel and the tubing strong I used a flaring tool and the designed the funnel to have a 45 degree angle like the flare. As you can see the template is pretty much a perfect pac man. I used some scrap aluminum to make a couple of test funnels until I got the template just right. I used a single rivet to hold the funnel together for soldering.
It came out looking quite nice, I think. Sadly, the funnel is a little low and so some liquid has to be pooled before it starts to flow. Doh! The laws of physics enforcement department never sleeps! If it ends up irritating me I will either extend the tube or make another one. Now that I have the template for the funnel it is quite easy to make.
Thanks! I have built a pintoshine still so had already worked with frustums. When I was drawing the template I realized that making the angle of the funnel 45 degrees it made the math simple. Then I just needed to experiment with patterns and test pieces to get the overlap and center hole to all work out. I wanted more overlap at the top for the rivet but less to almost none at the bottom to make the down tube to sit nicely.
I used some scrap aluminum to make a couple of test funnels until I got the template just right. I used a single rivet to hold the funnel together for soldering.
