My Frankenstill

[olddog]

After building and testing my new thumper, which was hugely successfull, I decided to build a new column incorporating the thumper. The coils around the outside of the thumper are in essence an extended lyne arm, which will help to pre-heat the thumper on warm up.
My workshop does not have a lot of space and I thought this would be a logical progression.

[kiwistiller]

That's a beaut piece of work mate, kinda makes me wish I was decent at metalwork

[olddog]

The soldering on the thumper is not too flash, its hard to get a good spread of heat with propane. I tested and fixed leaks about six times before I got it right. I cannot justify paying $139 for a map torch & cylinder.

[Aces High]

Im impressed that you have done such nice joints in the 50mm stuff. I've been using a borrowed MAPP torch and i still can't get the 50mm joints anywhere near that good.

[eternalfrost]

thats some damn beautiful work

i gotta give my typical rant about insulation again though
you really really should insulate at least the boiler, no questions asked. I would also strongly suggest insulating the thumper/coil as it is bsically just another boiler. The whole point of your beautiful coil is to put heat into the thumper, but as it is now 85% is just radiating into the air.

It may not look s pretty but i guarentee you itll give much shorter heat-up times and really cut down fuel costs.

takes 25% less time (and money) to get my full keg up to temp when insulations on as opposed to off. yes i measured

[Hack]

The new column looks nice. I was just thinking that since you're using the coil to help heat the thumper, wouldn't it work better if it was inside the thumper?

[olddog]

I probably would but I aint going to pull it apart, it was a bad enough job to get it to seal in the first place, That amount of copper realy sucks away the heat.

[punkin]

Atruly beautiful piece of work oldog, don't listen to the knockers...

Who cares if it costs an extra two dollars a week to run....


You're saving twenty five bucks with every bottle you drink

[violentblue]

it looks pretty, nice job.
however the coil on the outside to preheat the thumper is really just a redundancy.
the vapour entering the thumper will heat the liquid. the coil on the outside it just an oppertunity for heat to escape before the vapout enters the thumper.
unless the coil on the outside was from an external heat source.

I do like the design though, I'd do something like that just cause it looks good, won't have much effect on funtionality.

[schnell]

i think it's a work of art!

Does it "thump" like a bass amp cranked up when it bubbles and burps?

There is a danger of it becoming top heavy after a long run. The thumper will accumulate fluids while the pot below will lose them. With a changed weight distribution it could topple. When the thumper gets full it can be very dangerous to open the clamp at the junction of the keg and still head. A drain plug would eliminate the worry.

[SuperDavid]

that looks bloody great!!!

[rad14701]

Spinning the liebig around 180 degrees into an over-the-top configuration would help keep things in balance and would also yield a smaller overall footprint...

[olddog]

The chances of it becoming top heavy are remote, the boiler is charged with 20 litres of wash to start, and there is about 15 litres when finished,so there is still a decent weight left in the boiler.

[blanikdog]

Beautiful job, old dog. My soldering skills are ratshit. Thank the gods for flour paste.

blanik