New Construction: Improved Hybrid Air- and Water-Cooled Still

[Pierrot Lunaire 55]

About a month ago I posted a description of a stripping still that I'd built using a two-stage condenser, first an air-cooled section using a baseboard heating fin equipped pipe, followed by a Liebig condenser.

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I received a variety of comments and decided to make a Mark II version with a number of improvements:
• Additional air-cooling capacity
• More generous pipe diameters
• Replacing the Liebig condenser stage with a shotgun (shell and tube) design
* Convertible between a pot and column configuration

And it would require some basic capabilities:
• Easy to change boilers
• Fits under a relatively low ceiling
• Moveable

Here is the basic concept of the new design: The pipe off the boiler (2 inch) goes straight up about 3 feet, and necks down to 1.5 inch. It turns horizontal and feeds into the first cooling stage. The air-cooling capacity has been doubled by using two fin equipped pipes, side by side, in a shroud box with air forced in by a blower. The box is a parallelogram, 10 degrees off axis, to create tapered sections on each side of the fins.

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The photo (one side removed) shows the air inlet in the lower RH corner and the outlet through the three holes. This will stand so the pipes are vertical. The steam inlet and outlet split the flow into both pipes. (I do some ugly solder joints. Sorry.)

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This is ready to close up and install on the support structure.

The second part is the shotgun condenser. Thanks to some comments from Twisted Brick, I decided to do a four-tube, 2 inch shell arrangement using the stampings he makes for the ends and internal baffles.

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Here is the assembly in progress. My adaptation of his design was to make my own inlet/outlet pieces that could be mounted directly on the shell rather than using a pipe tee. I milled a block of brass to match the outside radius of the shell with a through hole for the pipe.

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Here it is fully assembled. The inlet and outlet pipes are both mounted about 30 degrees off axis so the flow goes between the internal pipes rather than right into the side.

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The next phase is the support structure and final assembly. Stay tuned.