It's a teakettle, 1 gallon (about), with a heating element inside it...I'm thinking it was made in the 1960's or so...with a machined steel connector to put an aircooled worm off it, which was soldered into the steel to join them. Can't go full bore or anything, so about the fastest is around an hour...barometric pressure also affects it, as well as the percentage in the wash. Had a thermomenter in the pot so I could judge when I was about ready to start taking and around the time to stop.
After reading this site though, I made a few MAJOR modifications to it:
1. re-machined the connector to go into the kettle out of stainless steel
2. removed ALL traces of the solder I had used to attach the worm as it had contained lead, and used Silver Solder, 100% lead-free
3. removed the thermometer and the ENGINE GASKET MATERIAL I WAS using, and silver-soldered the hole shut (thermometer was pointless, but back then, what did I know?)
4. there were some leaks around the spot, and I had used the same engine gasket material, so removed that and silver-soldered that air tight.
(now here's a safety change I made, but it proved effective back then as it still does now in my case)
5. instead of holding the connector and worm together with electrical tape to seal and join, I now use a gas line tape (PTFE if I remember is the correct term)...anyways, it's approved by everyone here, so I spent the extra on it, only difference is I use rice paper wrapped with it to create a 'tape' to seal it all together after the boilers charged and ready to run, THEN wrap a little electrical around since the tape I created just does not hold well once heat gets up to collection temperature.
As per calculators and all, it yields about 56% alcohol by volume max, but regrettably for a while, I haven't ran it as I been working hard, got other things going on that are a LOT more serious than this hobby, getting hydrometers and still looking for a good alco-meter, and slapping together a boca slant-plate still. It's tough at times when you hit a point when you gotta decide "Do I REALLY want this in my life, or can I withstand the heartbreak, and let it go" kinda thing.
Anyways though, the Boca I'm making, heat source will be a modified hotplate so it won't puse the heat, but keep it steady at up to (I believe the pad is rated )up to 2500W... will be about a 10 gallon pot sealed with flour paste and clipped down for now till I get a groove cut and whacked together, then upgrade it to clipped on with a gasket, going into a stainless sink drain to join it with an adaptor made to begin the next steps. Next steps, 1 foot long pieces of 1" copper pipe, each have a minor groove cut in to accept a PTFE based pipe sealant, tight fit too fyi, so it can go 1", 1', 3', 5', endless if desired. Built a coldfinger ready to be placed and fitted to the top for reflux (yes, the prototype to be tested soon and it's results whether it's something good, or totally worthless) and presently about to put together the section for the Boca Slant-Plate design. It should be able to be adapted to virtually any still type I think.
It'll have 2 electronic thermometers in it (considering another a little lower in the tube to help me learn how it really works, but for now, stickin with 2)...1 in the pot and 1 just under the upper plate in the boca head, and the takeoff is a lead free brass needle valve which I took apart, machined it some (I have a friend who owns their own machine shop, so they don't mind if I come in and tinker some long as I "give 'em a taste", and coated it with copper (about 0.009 thick, give or take)...should last a while safely, but after a few runs, going to measure and check just to be sure. For now though, all I could afford is a 1/4" takeoff tube. Cooling will be 3 sections of 1/2" pipe 8" long, laid out in sections kind of like a ladder but each one slants the opposite direction to help save on room and keep it modular and small in potential size for stripping runs....
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Water cooling will be through an old air conditioner, recycled water for starters on initial fire-up, but will add appropriate and safe components to help keep that part of the system clean, pump will be some fish tank pumps which can be upgraded later on if needed, but that part is also un-finished....(wtf am I TALKIN ABOUT...I haven't even taken the air conditioner apart yet!)
NOW THOUGH, here's the part of this where critisism is worthy regarding the SAFETLY of all our efforts, BUT:
For potential automation and if I can get my hands on the electronics, where the vent is on the top will (later on) have another cooling section attached to it, and a thermometer there, set up so as if IT sees a temp other than deemed safe (IE something went wrong, terribly wrong) it shuts the whole thing down, plus other sensors on the cooling lines to detect changes,, turns on another seperate pump that goes to a coil inside the boiler, and slams in cold water, also turning off the heat in the process, add other external sensors to detect flame, etc....but that's for later on in life, and IF it can be designed to be 200% reliable. (told ya if you read my welcome...I'm creative, but I'm committed as you only read about)
*edit* and yes, soon enough I'll get a camera and get some pics of what I've got so far too, it's a modular idea, so we got to take it 'modularly' at a time I guess, right?
