Advice for my first still setup

[Steelers_Stiller]

My friendly neighbor has a lathe. He was able to turn the ferrules down for me. He brought them over today. They all fit great now! I will start a new thread in the column build section.

[Steelers_Stiller]

I soldered up the liebig and most of the column today. That went well.

I tried soldering a 1.5" triclamp ferrule to my keg. That did not work out too well. I drilled a hole with a 1-3/8" hole saw and reamed it to size with a dremel. It was a nice, tight fit, or so I thought. I hammered the ferrule into the keg with a dead blow mallet. Put a straight edge on the face of the ferrule to make sure it was parallel.

I had the keg lying on its side, ferrule pointing straight up. I got a nice bead of solder going but it dripped through the joint and into the keg. I was surprised that happened since the joint was so tight. Photo attached of the fit up

I'm gonna try to take the ferrule off, clean it all up, and start over. Maybe stand it right side up this time.

.

[Salt Must Flow]

If all surfaces are already tinned with solder, you probably don't have to start over from scratch. Just flux it well, heat it up slow and add more dabs of solder to seal where it needs it. Starting over is probably unnecessary work just to tin the surfaces again. You might also make the hole more loose by doing it over again too. I'd try to fix it before starting over from scratch. Soldering stainless isn't always easy. To me, soldering copper to copper is super simple.

Cleaning up solder that seeped through should be really easy.

[Swedish Pride]

I soldered up the liebig and most of the column today. That went well.

I tried soldering a 1.5" triclamp ferrule to my keg. That did not work out too well. I drilled a hole with a 1-3/8" hole saw and reamed it to size with a dremel. It was a nice, tight fit, or so I thought. I hammered the ferrule into the keg with a dead blow mallet. Put a straight edge on the face of the ferrule to make sure it was parallel.

I had the keg lying on its side, ferrule pointing straight up. I got a nice bead of solder going but it dripped through the joint and into the keg. I was surprised that happened since the joint was so tight. Photo attached of the fit up

I'm gonna try to take the ferrule off, clean it all up, and start over. Maybe stand it right side up this time.

.

What flux are you using?

Make sure your keg is hot enough to take the solder.
It's basically a huge heat sink so it will take a bit to get it hot enough, if it's not up to temp the solder will just bead off it.

Pre tinning is great if you can , helps a heap.

[shadylane]

I have Type L copper Pipe. The ID is just under 2"
The 2" Tri Clamp ferrules I have are exactly 2" OD. They will not slip inside the pipe.

I was thinking of using a tail pipe expander to widen the pipe just enough to allow the ferrules to fit.
Any other ways to make this work?

I've done that before and it works.

[Steelers_Stiller]

[
What flux are you using?

Make sure your keg is hot enough to take the solder.
It's basically a huge heat sink so it will take a bit to get it hot enough, if it's not up to temp the solder will just bead off it.

Flux is Harris Stay Clean
Solder is Harris Stay Brite 8

I heated the inside of the ferrule. Maybe I need to heat the keg, a couple inches from joint to prevent from burning the flux.

[still_stirrin]

Too bad your neighbor with the lathe doesn’t have a TiG welder. That’d make short work of your dilema.
ss

[Swedish Pride]

Stay brute 8 is silver solder so will give you a stronger connection

Donwside is that it's more liquidy I find normal lead free solder has better void filling abilities and don't drip through voids as much.

For me, a non expert, I find normal lead free solder easier to work with and plenty strong for our applications.

[Steelers_Stiller]

The 2nd attempt at soldering the ferrule appears to be successful. Not the prettiest but its been holding water for almost 24 hrs now.
As I kept feeding solder into the leaky area of the connection, excess solder ran around an formed a puddle on the keg.

[Swedish Pride]

Looks plenty good to me, well done

[MooseMan]

Well done on getting it to work, persistence pays.

And hell, the end product won't care if it's pretty!

[shadylane]

You must have gone to the same school of soldering as me.
The bigger the glob the better the job.

[Steelers_Stiller]

You must have gone to the same school of soldering as me.
The bigger the glob the better the job.