Copper plate blanks for 3 inch. How thick sheet or can i just buy them

[Chauncey]

Im thinking the 3 cap 1 downcomer plates from my distillex russian/chinese flute as less than ideal and i want to make some with a single large cap with center downcomer as shown in a recent thread by jack c.

Should i flatten some copper pipe?

Is there a place that sells blanks?

Or should i just buy sheet and cut them out. If so, what weight of copper should i get? The plates that came with it are way thicker than any copper sheet ive messed with.

Any thoughts from ye old forum?

[Tummydoc]

If you've got spare pipe, I'd flatten some. Are you shooting for 3 inch?

I'm curious Chauncey, in what way did you find the preformance lacking and what do you hope to correct with the single bubble cap design? I may have to follow suit if you find a significant performance upgrade.

[tubbsy]

1" pipe flattened out is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 inches wide, so perfect for 3" column.

[Yummyrum]

Yup , just use some pipe . Trick is to heat it up ‘til its dull red .... annealed... then its like butter to work with . Cut it open with some snips . It will be so soft you can open it up with your fingers and hands.

Press it flat onto a flat board , stick another board on top and bash it flat with a hammer .

Wah lah ... dead flat plate . Also work hardened by the bashing between the boards so its flat with no dints

Cut out the circle .... it will slightly buckle with cutting .
Re-anneal and flatten as necessary until you have the perfect size plate

[Jack C]

The smaller copper pipes have pretty thin walls, I have used some spare 3 and 4 inch pipe that was type L. I did make some of mine from 6 inch type L that I had laying around. I think that between 0.625 and .100 thickness copper to be easy enough to work and rigid enough to not deform latter when being handled.

[bluefish_dist]

I just bought copper plate when I made plates. 1/16 works great. Was able to get it from metal supermarket. Then plasma cut the plates from the sheet.

[Windy City]

I have purchased 3" , 4" & 6" copper plates from Rio Grande.

https://www.riogrande.com/product/Coppe ... ard/132257

[The Baker]

1" pipe flattened out is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 inches wide, so perfect for 3" column.

Must have taken a while to work that out.

Geoff

[Hambone]

1" pipe flattened out is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679 inches wide, so perfect for 3" column.

Must have taken a while to work that out.

Geoff

I’ll bet it was easy as pi...

[NineInchNails]

Pipe works perfectly and it's plenty rigid for anything you need to do with a 3" column. I used flattened pipe to make my Shotgun condenser too.

I cut the pipe to length, I cut the pipe lengthwise, I anneal it with a torch, open it up, flatten it with a rubber mallet, clean it up, print a template and glue it to the plate using a glue stick. I use tin snips to cut it out pretty darn close. I use an angle grinder to tighten it up then a die grinder with abrasive disks to perfect/debur/polish my disks .

Still Dragon 3" Plate Gaskets are AWESOME for making centering collars, making disks to secure packing and for securing copper disks for many purposes. I needed a Tri-Clamp end cap and made one in a pinch using this gasket.