Yummyrums Flute build

[Yummyrum]

I've been building this for several years and finished it a few months ago . Its kicking around on a few other forums in various stages but here is the compiled version .
Funny thing is when you build a thing like this over such a long period of time , it becomes a work in progress operation and what you originally start to build gets changed . Priorities like budget , build simplicity get blurred and as you read and see others ideas and variations , the choices become overwhelming at times . Time also allows you to accumulate things ....like more clamps etc and again things change

So It all started when I did a job for an old plumber and he said he had some 4" copper .....and the rest is history

I loved Olddogs Flute with its brass sight glasses and very simple one piece construction . When all the tri-clamped stills appeared I was torn ....I loved the idea of the versatility but hate the look of all those bulky clamps
So I decided Budget was priority and purchased my brass Cap and liners ( I think you call them t rap adapters in US ) thinking this would be my first and last major expense . It was going to be a slide in plated column with only two tri-clamps to hold on the Deflamator on .

So I started on the PC . I wanted to braze the whole thing so I could safely solder on the connections without an internal melt down . I only have Mapp gas so to heat things up to red hot , I used a single ring gas burner as a pre heater and used the Mapp to bring to red hot where I needed it .

Next up was the Deflagmator . Then it was time to do flanges .... I hate bashing out flanges so I decided to just make up some 1/4" pipe rings , braze the ends together , flatten and braze on .

[Yummyrum]

So you may be wondering why there is a huge hole in the side or the Deflagmator ....well it was to the attach a cunning idea I had made previously . It was an adjustable water level thingy . I did not end up using it and haven't since but curiosity will get the better of me . The hole has a plate over it for now

So by now I was torn as whether to go slide in or modular ...so I made an executive decision. Make the site glasses and delay the bigger questions

So I got out my 2" Cap and liners and looked at them .I was hoping to use them as is and somehow sandwich glass and gaskets in there but it just wouldn't fit and the copper pressings were to roughly stamped to allow a good seal so I basically ended up with some very expensive brass nuts .So I decided to custom make them to fit .I brazed a copper ring on the end of the liner and hacksawed off the excess . nibbled it close then sanded it to perfection .
I managed to find some 2" all thread so I cut off a few mm to act as a retainer thread

[Yummyrum]

Then there was the question on how to do them like this

...or this ...and the online vote was ...........like this

Incidentally , The standard 2" sightglass thats everywhere wouldn't fit these caps so I had to make some . I thought long and hard about it but in the end used standard window glass . I know everone is now using Borosilicate glass but the first Flute builders used standard glass and I asked a few and they said they had not had any issues with it so .

making sightglasses is bloody easy . You just have to have a very fine wheel on you bench grinder ...I later found keeping it wet helps too .

Mark the diameter , score it with a glass cutter ,rough it out with some pliers and finish it on the bench grinder

[Yummyrum]

Then I had a set of sight glasses and a few spares ......I made the glasses first to just make sure I could before making the sight glasses . Thats why there is a pic of the original Cap and liner in the first pic here

About now I had decided it would be modular so modules it was . I did the same thing with the brazed on flatened copper 1/4" . If you wrap it tightly around the 4" , it springs back just enough that when you cut it and braze the end together , its a gnats dick bigger than the 4" . So when you hammer it flat , it expands and just touches the 4"

I brazed them on with the same Gas burner and Mapp technique. The worst part about brazing is filing off the flash that runs everywhere . I must have spent hours filing .....What really annoyed me was I am well aware that if you paint liquid paper on your job just beyond the joint , the flash will stop and not go past it ......was just lazy and payed for it .


So now it was time to fit the sight glasses . Because I went with option two with the glasses it ment I had to have the retainer thread on the back of the sight glass housing while I soldered it on . I bored the hole out with a 38mm saw and used a dremmel with a die cutter tool to bring it close then filed it home .

[Yummyrum]

Next descision was what kind of plates ....Bubble Caps and how many or Perfplates ....and again more options .How may holes , how big .
So again I did what I do best in this situation .....avoid it

One thing that I really wanted to do was copy olddogs Mk11 weir down comers. There is just something about that classis design I love . and fortunately about the only thing I wanted to do from the start . So how do you fit them into a modular column ...I thought long and hard . and eventually . Now this was a huge gamble and a shit ton of work .

Soldering these in so the sight glasses wouldn't fall off was a night mere and I ended up stuffing wet rags in and around the sight glasses while I frigged about with these things. Finally I was seeing the resemblance of a Flute

Then the bottom J trap section .This was an other custom job ...in hind sight I could have done a lot of things differently and easier

[Yummyrum]

Then the plates . Finally decided on Perf plates .

So Anneal , cut , press flat , bash flat between two boards.

Made the weirs ...but not soldered on yet

Then the ultimate question .....how may holes and how big .......well after countless hours of reading and reading I realized I could come to no logical conclusion .Every size and hole count possible had been tried and everone had there theory on idea hole size to plate size ratios and .

So in the end I went for 1/6" on a 1/4" grid ......and I followed Salt bush bills suggestion of using Lanolin spray and not a single drill bit was destroyed in the making of the plates

[Yummyrum]

Counter sunk the bottom of the holes . Had to de-burr them anyway so as I had a counter sinking tool it was just as easy to wizz it into every hole .

Marked and cut out the hole for the weirs and cut it out with a Jewelers saw ( sorry Steampunk , I've forgotten its real name again )

After a final clean up I re-annealed and bashed the plates perfectly flat between some boards again before finally soldering on the weirs

.

Cut out the gaskets ...and this is my choice ...others will not agree , I am sorry , use what ever method you prefer . Cut them out of copper sheet and wrap them in teflon tape .

[Yummyrum]

Gaskets seal plate to module

.

To get a good flat seal I had to grind the flanges ( and those with down comers attached ) perfectly flat ... The best I could do was "lanish" them by using the flat concrete floor of my garage . I swear it sound really dodgy but flat concrete makes an excellent grinder for copper

So now it was time to join up all the bits and make a real flute....despite my initial dislike for tri-clamps , I had begun to see the value in them ...and as this had already been a massive budget blow out I thought WTF , I'll just stick in a few more . ( which has already proved to be a worthwhile choice

So finally it was all set up for a vinegar run...the moment of truth .... would all those layers of plates and gaskets and flanges all seal ...would the home made sight glasses crack and liquid ethanol pour out by the gallon , would the sight glasses even seal ....and we wont disclose the gaskets used here ...suffice to say may use the same .

So As I fired it up on my 2400 watt electric element ( which only runs at about 2200 wats due to the number of extention cords that run out to the shed )......but that's anther story

So the run did work better than I had expected . One sight glass did leak so I tightened it up....then the bloody glass cracked . But to my surprise , no liquid came gushing out every where which gave me confidence that should this happen on gas that it would not be as bad as I had imagined .

Then a plate gasket started to leak . I pulled it all down and found a spot of crap on the plate which I can only suspect caused the gasket not to seal

The leaky sightglass turned out to be because I was slack making the gasket

So with all that fixed and several practice cleaning runs I stuck it on the gas burner and did my first Flute Rum run

[Yummyrum]

Being scared of highly combustible liquid and gas burners I made a longer take off pipe which joints to the PC via a SS union .I tried soldering the unions onto copper pipe elbows and it was a nightmare so just bought the elbows in SS

So now its easy to setup take off pipe

And it makes Rum too

Well this was the first run ..it was all over the place and I should have done a lot of things different ......proud daddy shot of an ugly baby

[Ridgeville Runner]

Awesome [THUMBS UP SIGN]

[Swedish Pride]

Well documented with lots of pics, I like it, i like it a lot

I like taste of red gaskets in my drink too

any reason you did not just do as you mentioned, copper wrapped in PTFE ?

[Yummyrum]

Thanks Ridge
Thanks Swede ...Hmm the gaskets ...really didn't want to go there but I wanted it to be true to there it is . But it was an experimental design and all I wanted to do was prove that it would work so that's why I used it. I am re-thinking the down comer idea and may make it combined with the plate as a one piece plate . That will make the gaskets much easier to make ( just round not as they are at present ) . The copper wrapped in teflon is a good idea but would be a PITA to make .
It is the weak point .

[yakattack]

Beautiful build friend. I'm going to be stealing some of these techniques as I'm just itching to start working the copper again. Any tips on brazing the flanges to the column? I've only soldered before so have no equipment for brazing or any clue as to what I'm doing.

Yak

[Danespirit]

Hey Yummy...you sure got some metalwork skills...
You made yourself a very nice flute there, it should be able to produce a fine product (should be fast too).
Good thinking with the burner as a preheat source, makes life much easier..such a big piece of copper draws a lot of heat away.

[Yummyrum]

Beautiful build friend. I'm going to be stealing some of these techniques as I'm just itching to start working the copper again. Any tips on brazing the flanges to the column? I've only soldered before so have no equipment for brazing or any clue as to what I'm doing.

Yak

Thanks yak

You got to get it red hot to melt the brazing rods . An oxy acetalene set will do it but they are not very DIY available .

You can forget Butane gas torches , they just can't get hot enough ...even for a tiny piece of copper.

Mapp gas will get most small to medium ( up to about 2" copper) hot enough to braze . Its all about getting enough heat in while it dissipates into the air . If you try to braze the end of a 1 meter long piece of 2" , you will be there all day and use a can of gas before it gets hot enough .

So as you might have seen , the trick is to stick in extra heat from a gas burner that overcomes the heat lost while using your Mapp torch to bring the area you want to braze up to red hot . Brazing copper to copper is really easy in that you don't need ant flux . The rods are available in 2,5 and 15% silver content typically . It's used by plumbers and they call it silphos in some countries . I buy mine at my local Bunnings hardware .

The only thing issue I had when brazing the rings on was quite interesting actually . You see I must have got a perfect end to end seal on the 1/4" so when I flattened it , it compressed the air inside . When I went to braze it to the 4" I must have held the torch in the one spot to long . The copper annealed ( softened ...as it does when it gets red hot ) and a bulge appeared .Fortunately I hadn't touched the rod on it or would have been stuffed .I ended up drilling a 1mm hole in it to let the air out . In fact i pre-drilled all my rings after that but in hindsight I think I just applied too much heat in one area for too long

[Yummyrum]

Thanks Dane . I'm getting better making stuff with it ...it sure is a learning curve

Regarding how it runs . well those weirs are bloody awesome . I have cranked up the gas under it to ridiculously high levels and it does not flood . Olddog said they were the go and wouldn't flood . Not sure how he new as he only had ( officially) 2400 watts . But he was right . the level just stays the same . Admitted my Deflagmator is letting the team down .

[Halfbaked]

Very Nice Yummy! You have some skills!

[pfshine]

Very nice. You knocked it out of the park. Don't know why so many don't just build one.

[rad14701]

This is a splendidly documented flute build, Yummyrum...!!!

Glad it performs as nicely as it looks...

[bearriver]

That sir is one Skookum still.

Thank you for sharing your workmanship with us!

EDIT: I think that I've seen that dephlegmator before...

[yakattack]

Did the 1/4 inch need any trimming to fit the triclamp? I assume you flatten the ring before brazing? I'll make sure to have a vent hole just in case. Even though the furrels are pretty cheap I want to make as much on my own as possible. The only things I won't be making are the tri clamps and the two 90 degree bends and one 3 to 4 inch reducer. The reducer because it's structural and the 90s because it's not something I can form on my own.
Though thinking about I I may be able to.... I'll have to try it on 2 inch stock first.... it's cheaper.

If I can figure out how to make my own tri clamps I will.

Any thoughts ?
Yak

[googe]

Beautiful as always yummy . Very nice write up mate!.

[shadylane]

I'll be back in a little while.
Figure it's time to check out you're other 142 posts.

[Yummyrum]

Thanks Halfbake , LOL googe , its way more interesting that the 26 page "pull your finger out " version that was suffered on CCSC forum

Don't know why so many don't just build one.

Thanks pfshine ....if this helps others then it was worth the effort . I know how hard it was sifting through various builds and trying to work out how guys had done things .

Thanks Rad

EDIT: I think that I've seen that dephlegmator before...

Guess'n you mean the strange adjustable contraption .....not sure about that thing...there are associated issues I need to address before it might work . Got a lot of playing to do with it as is .

I'll be back in a little while.
Figure it's time to check out you're other 142 posts.

Wouldn't dig to deep shady ...most of it I probably should have kept to myself

Did the 1/4 inch need any trimming to fit the triclamp? No I assume you flatten the ring before brazing? Yes I'll make sure to have a vent hole just in case. Even though the furrels are pretty cheap I want to make as much on my own as possible. The only things I won't be making are the tri clamps and the two 90 degree bends and one 3 to 4 inch reducer. The reducer because it's structural and the 90s because it's not something I can form on my own. The 90s aren't essential at all .Many flutes have been built with straight pipes connecting the Deflagmator to the Product condenser .....Check out Olddogs MK11 flute build or Salt bush bills
Though thinking about I I may be able to.... I'll have to try it on 2 inch stock first.... it's cheaper.

If I can figure out how to make my own tri clamps I will.

Any thoughts ?
Yak

Yak when I made my first still , I made my own clamps because I couldn't buy them locally and I wasn't into online shopping . They kinda worked but after a year I finally managed to get some real ones .

I split some 1/2" in half and annealed it

Then I made a former out of mild steel , I think it was about 5mm thick .....and bashed the copper around it .

Then I cut and bent it ino the shape it is and brazed the ends back up and it holds together with nuts and bolts....LOL , they're as rough as guts , by that stage I just wanted the bloody thing working

AS I said its rough and ready and although they worked , I don't think it has the compression characteristic that a solid real one has ...anyway food for thought .
I did see here once that a fellow had made clamps out of discs of plywood bolted together with nuts and bolts

I have to do another module or two so will get out the camera and do a step by step of the rings and things .

[yakattack]

Appreciate it yr. I will.have to do some.further research.

I get the distinct impression that it would be easier and cheaper in the long run to jut buy my clamps as I don't want to have a million issues each time I want to change something.

If you do I would love to see it. I'm a very visual person so to see a step by step process would be amazing.

I already known can probably do the furrels like yours no problem. So that will save me a ton of money.

Do you think I'd need to trim if I used 3/8 copper or is there still an 1/8 of an inch play room l?

Yak

[Yummyrum]

Yak . was thinking about my answer to you earlier and I may have given you a dodgy answer . I am in Australia ...our copper is OD ( Measured Out side diameter ) where as ...and I'm guessing you are probably in the states . Your copper is measured in ID ( inside or internal diameter ) .

So your pipe is fatter than ours . it also depends on the type of pipe you get . some is thin , the DWV type used for storm water and drains ( which incidentally I used and its perfectly fine ) ..or the heavier guage stuff designed for high pressure mains water supplies . Then there is the ID/OD difference in the 1/4" stuff .

So ...I can understand why you questioned me about grinding it down to fit . You are absolutely right . Whereas my Aussie stuff worked out perfect diameter when flattened , your US stuff will surely be larger than a standard Tri-clamp ferrule .

Incidentally before I ended doing what I did , I tried to make an ( angled ) ferrule out of our Aussie 3/8" stuff to try to simulate a real tri-clamp profile but it always lost shape and flattened . Eventually I found by painfully filling the tube with fine beach sand before brazing the end closed I could get the wedge shape I was after as the sand inside stopped it collapsing .

Unfortunately it was just too large even though I was getting close with the profile . I figured that perhaps 5/16" would be the go but it was prohibitively expensive here as its only available to Aircon companies.
So there's no way US 3/8" will work its larger than ours and then you have to fit it to a larger pipe

So it may well be that with your US 1/4" you can fashion a more wedge like profile . Keeping it a wedge will certainly be better in terms of how a tri-clamp works .But remmber that a standard triclamp gaskit is only about 2mm thick so this will effect how you insert your plates and gaskets .

My method works but like most "easy flange" methods , it is a bastardization of the tri-clamp system Mine just happened to work be cause the thickness of the flanges , thickness off the plate and the thickness of the two sandwiched gaskets just happened to be the perfect thickness that it lined up with the tapered sides of the Tri-clamp .

It is not uncommon for flute builders who have made there own flanges to spend a lot of time mucking about with gasket thicknesses to take up or reduce the size so it all clamps up nicely

[yakattack]

Yr. I appreciate the explained response.
I'm in Canada but yes it will be the same issue. The sand is not a bad idea. In fact if I can figure out the wedge shape I know how I will do it.

Is it possible to mig copper? Obviously it would only be parts that are not in the vapor path.

Figure might on the top and then do a solder seal on the bottom, then run it through a belt sander to get a perfect flat surface to mate.

I will have to wait for some clamps to arive so I can measure and work it out.

Yak

Yak

[cranky]

Very nice Yummyrum I like lots of pictures and details

[Saltbush Bill]

Dont know how I missed this post before. Its about bloody time you finished it Yummy lol.

[Yummyrum]

I like lots of pictures and details

No worries Cranky ..I aim to please ...gotta keep the Cranky old buggers happy

Its about bloody time you finished it Yummy lol.

Sure has Salty , if it wasn't for you toe constantly giving me an unsubtle nudge , this might have dragged out for ever ...Thanks

I have to do another module or two so will get out the camera and do a step by step of the rings and things .

If you do I would love to see it. I'm a very visual person so to see a step by step process would be amazing.
Yak

Had some PMs and requests for further info so Yak and others that are interested . Here is a step by step on how I made the Brazed on Flanges ..... Here