Exhaust Wrap Insulation

[Rusty Ole Bucket]

I run outside exclusively. I've done several runs now, and have noticed it takes considerably longer to heat everything up now than it did when it was hotter. I added the propane shroud around the base of my boiler and that has helped some, but I want to insulate my riser, still head, arm and thumper head and see if it will save a little gas in the long run. I'm hoping to be able to run this winter, so I started experimenting with a run this weekend, adding some standard pipe insulation.

I had a couple of the rubber pipe insulation sections laying around, not the foam ones the nice pliable rubber. I put one around my lyne arm between my boiler and thumper. Worked great, secured it with some Velcro straps. I also managed to get a couple of 1" pieces around the thumper head, figured once the still was cool, I'd fine tune everything and add the parts I hadn't done yet. Well, yesterday when I tried to pull everything apart and clean up, everything that had the rubber insulation on it had areas where the rubber had melted and adhered to the copper. D'OH!

Took a couple of extra hours cleaning to get it off. I tried Scotch-Brite, sanding and finally landed at course steel wool to get it off. It was stuck on there good. I didn't think it would melt given the operating temps, but it sure did. SO.....

I started looking for an alternative and saw one post on here that mentioned exhaust wrap. I've used it for years on motorcycles and it works great, but I can't find a lot about it on here. I live in the southern United States so I don't need much insulation but thought it might work. Anyone have any experience. It's cheap enough I might try it if no one has, but you guys have tried everything, though; right?

Edit: I do plan to add at least one layer of Refletix to the thumper.

Rusty