Goofy things I do

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yakattack
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by yakattack »

Well what are you waiting for? Come on cranky. Give us a show. Don't keep her all to yourself....
HDNB wrote: The trick here is to learn what leads to a stalled mash....and quit doing that.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

yakattack wrote:Well what are you waiting for? Come on cranky. Give us a show. Don't keep her all to yourself....
I have been waiting to run the last of the apple and the rum batch then I plan on adding a fill port to my boiler so I can take care of all the cleaning in one go. Gonna try to run the rum this week.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

Today I finally did the cleaning runs on my new condenser.
double dimroth #1 - C.JPG
I have to say I did something stupid that I knew better :( I ran the vinegar run and just like with a normal condenser I steamed it for a half hour or so, than turned on the cooling water and immediately heard two loud snaps like a breaker kicking off. I knew I had screwed up but it was too late, looking at the 2 mugs I saw both had big cracks in them.
double dimroth #2 - C.JPG
double dimroth #3 - C.JPG
One thing about these thick mugs is when they crack the crack is more of an inclusion than a real fracture so they actually didn't leak and I actually continued with the vinegar and water cleaning runs as normal but I need to drill two more mugs before I do the sacrificial run. One thing I will say is that the condenser part works real well and I think the lower condenser isn't really necessary but is a nice bit of overkill. I believe that Once I get the mugs replaced and run like I normally do with the cooling water from the very beginning there won't be any further problems. I really did know better and should have shut down and let the glass cool off before hitting it with 60 degree water but it is a good example of how shock cooling can effect glass. If these mugs had been tempered glass I would have had bits of glass everywhere. If they had been something thin like canning jars they would have broken into large sharp dangerous shards. This was the reason for using the mugs in the first place, that they are thick and durable, it was the operator that failed them.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by rad14701 »

cranky, that's a good example of why we continue to reiterate that we don't like glass in a still... You got lucky... Some novice might end up maimed or dead if they were to use glass... I shudder every single time I see glass still components... Now you know why, up close and personal...
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

rad14701 wrote:cranky, that's a good example of why we continue to reiterate that we don't like glass in a still... You got lucky... Some novice might end up maimed or dead if they were to use glass... I shudder every single time I see glass still components... Now you know why, up close and personal...
I knew you would chime in on this one. It is a good example of what not to do and why glass is a bad idea. Even though I am very familiar with glass I made a dumb mistake. I doubt even the commercial borosilicate glass would be safe going from 215F to 60F instantaneously, it could even happen to sight glasses in any still, there are plenty of those out there. It is a good example of what can happen with glass which is why I posted it and I am thinking about replacing the mugs with copper or maybe some boro tubes from Still Dragon but where is the fun in that?
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by Oldvine Zin »

cranky wrote:Still Dragon but where is the fun in that?
:D :D :D :D :thumbup:
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

Friday and Yesterday I drilled out the bottoms of 2 more mugs and bought more PTFE tape. Today my plan is to change mugs out. Since I already did the cleaning runs a simple sac run to remove any glass dust and it should be ready for a proper run.

Perhaps I should repeat the warning from the beginning of this post
cranky wrote:
WARNING! What you are about to read and see is probably not a good idea for many reasons and should probably not be attempted by people who don't have a good working knowledge of glass. So I would recommend that if you are thinking of trying something like this, don't.
Now that you have been properly warned I would like to show you my latest build.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by frodo »

WISHING FOR THE BEST !!!!


hope it works this time, that is a lotta work
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

frodo wrote:WISHING FOR THE BEST !!!!


hope it works this time, that is a lotta work
I have the flux capacitor....Um....I mean condenser back together today. I just need to set up for a bit of cleaning and we will see how it goes. Cutting the holes actually went pretty well, when I went to the dollar store I bought 4 mugs because I'm having a thought about using the plate I removed to make a single plate mini-muggles just because.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

Has it really been almost 6 years since I last did something goofy enough to post in this thread?

:problem: Well, I guess it's high time to revive this dead thread :D

The other day I was cleaning the garage...I know, I've been trying to clean the garage for 10 pr 12 years now and only came close to it once :roll:

but, that aside, I was cleaning it again (still maybe?) and came across a bottle of apple brandy that somehow wound up in a box away from everything else. Problem is it has a tight fitting cork that is broken off in the bottle so I have to extract it to get a good taste. It was seeping a bit of liquid out which I tasted and it was amazing. I hope the whole bottle tastes like that, but that isn't what this post is about.

This post is about the bucket of random copper bits I found in a 5 gallon bucket which got me thinking :think:

I got to thinking, what can I do with all these random fittings? Then I got to thinking, you know, I have access to a TIG welder and learned to use it a few years ago, I wonder if I could weld up a new pot head in a weekend using only what I find in my garage and not spending any money?

So I started running through things in my head and thought, I bet I could weld up a new longer shotgun PC and lyne arm, the column part wouldn't need replaced.

So yesterday I set to work seeing what I could do.

I started laying out the bit's I thought might be useful
SG CONDENSER #1 - C.jpg
A stick of 1.5" pipe, a roll of 1/2" copper tubing, two 1.5" couplings, a 1.5" 90* street elbow, a couple of 3 or 4" pieces of 1/2" pipe, a single 2" tri clamp and a couple other random things.

I started by drilling a couple holes in a board, one 1.75" which fits the outside of a 1.5" coupling and another smaller one that fits the outside of the pipe it's self.
SG CONDENSER #4 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #5 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #6 - C.jpg
Then I cut a 39" piece of the 1.5" pipe, annealed the factory cut end, clamped it in the form and began hammering away.
SG CONDENSER #7 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #9 - C.jpg
Last edited by cranky on Mon Mar 14, 2022 5:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

After a couple of blows it looked like this
SG CONDENSER #10 - C.jpg
and needed annealed again.

A couple of cycles like that and it looked like this
SG CONDENSER #11 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #12 - C.jpg
Now one of the problems with using 2" tri-clamps on a 1.5" pipe is getting the flange large enough to clamp it but at this point it was just big enough, this is one of the reasons I was considering using a coupling instead of the pipe, because a coupling can make a 2" flange quite easily, but I decided to save the couplings.

Next I needed to figure out the parts that hold the tubes inside the shotgun. This wasn't too hard. A 1.5" pipe is...1.5" ID, and 1/2" tubing is 1/2" OD so I needed to figure out how many tubes I could fit in it. I wanted to do 4 but that would have been a fairly tight fit so just like in my last shotgun I felt 3 works better.

So I cut a 1.75 section of pipe off, cut it, annealed it, flattened it out and marked it for size
SG CONDENSER #14 - C.jpg
Then I got to thinking that maybe for the top piece I would make it large enough to make the final diameter of the clamping flange a little larger based on the maximum size of the tru-clamp. So I cut a second one larger than the first, cut it, annealed it, hammered flat and marked it out.
SG CONDENSER #15 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #17 - C.jpg
Last edited by cranky on Mon Mar 14, 2022 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Then I drilled it out with a 1/2" drillbit
SG CONDENSER #19 - C.jpg
and used that as a template to mark and drill the 3 smaller ones
SG CONDENSER #20 - C.jpg
Cut them out
SG CONDENSER #21 - C.jpg
Then I cut a small piece of 1.5" pipe to use to cut the smaller pieces to size and marked them.
SG CONDENSER #35 - C.jpg
Next I straightened 3 pieces of pipe the right length to use as cooling tubes
SG CONDENSER #22 - C.jpg
and welded them to the top plate
SG CONDENSER #24 - C.jpg
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Cleaned it up a bit
SG CONDENSER #25 - C.jpg
and I think it don't look half bad.

TIG welding copper is certainly different than steel and took a bit of learning. I'm sure some here can do much better but I think I did OK enough to continue with my evil plan :D

Next I decided the two pieces that go inside the tube needed to be spreaders and as small as possible to avoid restriction so cut them down, clicked them on the tubes and soldered them in place.
SG CONDENSER #26 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #27 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #42 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #41 - C.jpg
Not bad, I think :D

Now it was ready to install in the tube.
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Next I drilled the holes for the cooling water inlet and outlet tubes, fitted them and welded them in place.
SG CONDENSER #37 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #38 - C.jpg
I was now ready to weld the tubes into the pipe.

So I inserted the assembly, clamped it into place, tack welded it, adjusted the flanges and welded the two upper flanges together...and my stupid phone decided to take those pictures in some weird format that isn't compatible with any program I currently have, but it worked pretty well.

I then ground the bottom filler piece to shape
SG CONDENSER #32 - C.jpg
and fitted it in place
SG CONDENSER #43 - C.jpg
At this point I opted to solder it, rather than weld because I was so far along, I was afraid of screwing it up and I like to leave the tubes extending and cut them at an angle, because I like watching the product come out and think it looks cool :D I also don't have a pic of the finished solder job on that (stupid phone :evil: )

Then I added a crap load of solder to the flange to give a tapered surface to aid in clamping. I also discovered that the TIG works quite well for this.
SG CONDENSER #45 - C.jpg
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Re: Goofy things I do

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The last thing was to solder a fitting on to thread a valve for the cooling lines, then polish it up and maybe solder any welds that looked iffy
SG CONDENSER #47 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #46 - C.jpg
Then I turned my attention to the lyne arm...how do you make one with only one 90^ street elbow when you need two? :problem:

Well...first I cut a piece of pipe off, used the TIG to anneal the end, which worked amazingly well :thumbup: hammered a flange on it, then cut it at a 45* angle
SG CONDENSER #48 - C.jpg
turned it to make a 90
SG CONDENSER #49 - C.jpg
and weld it back together.
SG CONDENSER #50 - C.jpg
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cranky
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Then I cleaned and polished it up
SG CONDENSER #52 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #53 - C.jpg
Then I was out of time, my weekend was over and I had failed to finish :(
but I had gotten the condenser done and was anxious to hook it to the water pump and see if I needed to fix any leaks. :D

When I got home I wrapped some PTFE tape around the threads on the fitting and tightened the valve so I could test it.

But like an idiot I didn't use a backup wrench and this happened
SG CONDENSER #54 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #55 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #56 - C.jpg
:esurprised: at least I know my welds are stronger than the copper :roll: but now I need to figure out how to fix this without damaging the pipe or messing up the soldered in lower close out piece :?
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Today was a good day and I needed a distraction so I set about figuring out how to fix my broken inlet.

My solution was a saddle fitting. I started off by drilling a hole in a piece of wood and over-sizing it to fit the 1/2" pipe loosly and making it tapered and eye shaped.
SG CONDENSER #60 - Copy.jpg
Then I cut a piece of the 1.5" pipe and cut it in half and annealed each half.
SG CONDENSER #61 - C.jpg
Then I drilled a hole in it that was considerably smaller than the planned final dimension.
SG CONDENSER #62 - C.jpg
Set is on the board lined up with the hole and used a tapered punch to size and shape the hole
SG CONDENSER #65 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #66 - C.jpg
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Now the new fitting was flared out and the hole was to size
SG CONDENSER #67 - C.jpg
So I shaped it the way I wanted it, sand blasted it and cleaned it
SG CONDENSER #69 - C.jpg
Then soldered it in place, which was quite difficult and looked pretty ugly but I'm fairly confident it will work just fine
SG CONDENSER #70 - C.jpg
I then cleaned it up, sand blasted the whole thing and called it done :D
SG CONDENSER #71 - C.jpg
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Then I turned my attention to the lyne arm.

I wasn't all that happy with the weld in the inside of the bend so decided to re-do it. I started by sand blasting it, then scrubbing it with a wire brush and alcohol, then cleaning it and scrubbing it some more. I did this several times until I figured it had to be clean enough for a cleaner weld.

Doing all of this I learned a lot about welding copper. From the two youtube videos I watched on the subject I learned that the only way you can get a good copper weld is to use helium shielding gas. From my efforts to do it I learned that if you don't have helium the most important thing is to not know it's the only way to get a good weld :mrgreen:

In my own experience I learned what's really important is speed. Go in with a lot of amperage hit it with full amperage, get a puddle going and keep moving. When you need to stop quench it in cold water, re-clean and do it over again. Another key thing is watch for the puddle getting too big, because the heat seems to just build and build and build while you weld. This method resulted in a pretty decent weld...until I blew a hole in it, then it got a little ugly but I got it filled and if I wanted to I could clean it up and make it look like it were made that way.
SG CONDENSER #72 - C.jpg
That went so well I decided rather than solder the street elbow on and then solder a coupling to that I decided I would actually weld the elbow on. This actually went very well
SG CONDENSER #74 - C.jpg
Although I did burn through in one place and had to fix it, but that wasn't hard.

That gave me this
SG CONDENSER #75 - C.jpg
Then I had to add some solder to the clamping flange so I could make it thicker and taper it for the clamp. This was a simple matter of tinning it with a torch, then taking it to the TIG and using that to add solder nice and thich, then using a die grinder to shape and taper it.
SG CONDENSER #76 - C.jpg
Last was to sand blast it all and check the fit.
SG CONDENSER #77 - C.jpg
Last edited by cranky on Sun Mar 20, 2022 6:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Then I got the idea that it could use a spreader bar to help support it so I set to work on that.

In my pile of random crap I had three 5/8" diameter, 12 inch long "repair couplings" which are made to slip over 1/2" OD pipe. I figured those would work fine as a spreader bar.

So I cut 4 pieces of 1.5" pipe
SG CONDENSER #79 - C.jpg
Annealed them cut and shaped them to serve as clamps
SG CONDENSER #80 - C.jpg
Welded a piece of 5/8" pipe to each clamp
SG CONDENSER #81 - C.jpg
Cut them to the length needed to span the distance between the riser and the condenser and butt welded them together.
SG CONDENSER #82 - C.jpg
Tomorrow I'll clean up the welds and make the spreader all nice and pretty and this whole project should be finished :ebiggrin:
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by Oatmeal »

I was wondering how the flange would work, and now I know. Alot of advanced fabrication made to seem simple. Glad to see it!
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Oatmeal wrote: Sat Mar 19, 2022 8:26 pm I was wondering how the flange would work, and now I know. Alot of advanced fabrication made to seem simple. Glad to see it!
It doesn't seem all that advanced to me but maybe it's just the way I think... although the TIG welding copper might be considered advanced :problem: I've been making hammered flanges ever since a failure of an easy flange. The hammered flange doesn't fail under the weight of a condenser. My normal method of making them is using a cheap crappy plumbers torch to anneal and solder.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by CoogeeBoy »

cranky wrote: Sat Mar 19, 2022 6:41 pm Then I got the idea that it could use a spreader bar to help support it so I set to work on that.

In my pile of random crap I had three 5/8" diameter, 12 inch long "repair couplings" which are made to slip over 1/2" OD pipe. I figured those would work fine as a spreader bar.

So I cut 4 pieces of 1.5" pipe
SG CONDENSER #79 - C.jpg
Annealed them cut and shaped them to serve as clamps
SG CONDENSER #80 - C.jpg

Welded a piece of 5/8" pipe to each clamp
SG CONDENSER #81 - C.jpg

Cut them to the length needed to span the distance between the riser and the condenser and butt welded them together.
SG CONDENSER #82 - C.jpg

Tomorrow I'll clean up the welds and make the spreader all nice and pretty and this whole project should be finished :ebiggrin:
I reckon you do this to get away from the wife!
Taking a break while I get a new still completed....
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

CoogeeBoy wrote: Sun Mar 20, 2022 2:25 pm I reckon you do this to get away from the wife!
Actually the opposite is true, I do this stuff because I am away from my wife and have some free time on my hands and access to a metal shop.
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Re: Goofy things I do

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Today I finished up the spreader bar.

When I started the weld looked like this
SG CONDENSER #83 - C.jpg
I didn't get too carried away with the finish work on it and just roughly cleaned it up on the belt sander then hit it with the sand blaster and the finished product now looks like this
SG CONDENSER #85 - C.jpg
SG CONDENSER #84 - C.jpg
Sandblasting actually stiffens the copper up quite a bit, which is helpful.

And with that we are on to leak checking and cleaning, when I find the time.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

I managed to get the new setup leak checked...and leak fixed :roll: and re-fixed but the condenser holds fully pressurized water now. It will not be pressurized during normal operation because I believe in regulating the inlet rather than the outlet water. The leaks were actually fairly minor and easy enough to fix but it needs a bit of prettying up...or not :think: after all I think I really should keep my signature "Early American junk pile" look that all my other stuff has :crazy:

I guess the only thing to do now is clean, clean, clean and clean some more then see how well it works, not that I don't already know since I run a shorter version of it with the Muggles Too and Neutralizer.

Here is a pic of it set up.
SG CONDENSER #86 - C.jpg
When I set it up for real the riser will be much shorter. I don't like a tall riser when running in pot mode because I feel it unnecessarily adds time to the run as well as the passive reflux taking away flavor. Ideally I want the outlet to be 3 inches above a half gallon jar placed on the floor so I'll cut a new riser for that specific outlet height some time.
Last edited by cranky on Thu Mar 24, 2022 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cob »

Ten days of quiet meditation. :lol:
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by The Baker »

Ten days of quiet meditation.

Sounds good.

Actually I could use that as my excuse for doing very little.

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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by Yummyrum »

Like it Cranky .Always nice to see a bit of custom copper work . Soldering up a few plumbing fittings is fun , but fabricating something else thats not off the shelf keeps the brain active.
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Re: Goofy things I do

Post by cranky »

Yummyrum wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:26 am Like it Cranky .Always nice to see a bit of custom copper work . Soldering up a few plumbing fittings is fun , but fabricating something else thats not off the shelf keeps the brain active.
Thank you Yummy, it was actually a lot of fun and I learned how to TIG weld copper :D I actually regret soldering the bottom plate on rather than TIG welding it because it meant I couldn't weld the repairs and had to resort to solder. If it weren't for that all the repairs could have been welded and cleaner, as well as easier to clean. If I did it over I would definitely only weld it, especially since I think I now have the welding down.

I kind of feel lost without having a project and the past few weeks have been very stressful so this was really just an exercise to see what I could do. Best of all I didn't spend any additional money on it and probably have less than $50 in it all together if I added up the costs of all the copper I bought over the past few years that I used. The Tubing, fittings and valves were bought for 80 or 90% off, which was less than scrap weight, and the 1.5" pipe was $20 or $30 back when Lowe's was clearancing all their larger copper.

Now my only projects are installing a new radiator in my truck and seeing if I can reinforce the door on my mailbox to see if I can make it much more difficult to pry open. Tuesday someone used a pry bar to pry open my mailbox and bent the crap out of it so now I need to see if I can prevent that in the future.
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