Tammuz wrote: ↑Wed Nov 12, 2025 11:18 am
I'm glad to see you were able to make your plan come to fruition.
It's slowly getting there. At the moment it's still a work in progress.
One more plate will be added and most likely the cap will be modified so the outlet and cooling lines come out the side instead of up.
For now, I'll run it asis and see how it works and what mods the dephleg need done.
Almost time for a water run. The plumbing is done.
The electrics are done and ready to plug in and all that's needed is to fill the boiler and turn it on.
I'll do that tomorrow, tonight I'm going to drink beer instead of working.
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Did a test run with steam and the plate to glass seals leaked excessively, I'll need to pull the plates and wind more string on them.
I'm guessing on the power but figure the numbers are fairly accurate. The heaters are Camco 02923 4500W 240V
To test the heater resistance, I ran the heater wide open boiling water then quickly unplugged it to measure the ohms while it was still hot.
On both heaters the resistance hot was 13.8 ohms and cold it was 13.2
With 232v measured at the heater the power was 3900w each. So 7800w total.
Only the occasional drip was coming out of the PC with the dephleg cooling valve wide open.
The flow was .7gal/min. inlet temp of 62'f and outlet temp of 132'f
I was too preoccupied by the plate weapage and didn't try turning the flow down but next time will.
Pulled the plates and wound more turns of #3 crochet string, reinstalled and fired her up.
The plates loaded up nice and sweet. But there's still excess weepage past the seals.
#3 crochet string looks like it isn't going to be thick enough and that's the thickest size it comes in.
So I ordered several different sizes of cotton, hemp and jute string to see what works best.
The good news is the DIY gaskets that seal the glass and end caps hasn't leaked a drop.
Hemp rope could be an option.
Is the weeping that big a problem?
Its only on Stop and Restart you have to wait a bit for the plates to flood, once it gets up to pressure it will be fine.
decoy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 18, 2025 10:57 am
Is the weeping that big a problem?
Definitely a big problem, the glass is out of round, tapered and thin so I have to be careful about internal pressure.
No hammering the plates in like I could on the 4" glass build..
The 1.5mm cotton string came in today. Maybe it will make a pliable enough seal that conforms to the glass.
1.5mm cotton string does a good enough but still leaks.
Interestingly it will hold an almost perfect seal against cold water poured into the column but leaks more with the boiler and depleg running.
Kinda looks like the glass getting hot increases it's diameter enough to cause problems.
Shady, I know you were not happy with ptfe. I have good succes with ptfe tape on a thin plate without a rim. Maybe after the cotton string wrap 3 turns ptfe tape.
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higgins wrote: ↑Wed Nov 19, 2025 12:31 pm
What about PTFE rope? is 3/32" thick enough?
Just guessing 3/32" = 2.4mm is close to what's needed.
I'm thinking O-rings would be easier to use than PTFE rope.
If organic string fails to getter done, I'll resort to using food grade silicone O-rings.
Yummyrum wrote: ↑Fri Nov 21, 2025 9:05 pm
Eccentric glass that expands when hot . Can’t say you haven’t tried Shady , thats a tough gig .
I haven't given up on using organic string yet, but silicone O-rings checks all the boxes for making the best seal
Call me old school, cantankerous, obstinate or whatever but I'd prefer using something natural.
I redid the seals using 2mm cotton string and it worked much better than the 1.5mm string.
There's minimum leakage and the power and reflux can be turned down without the plate unloading.
Next on the list is to use silicon O-rings that's 2.5mm thick.
shadylane wrote: ↑Sun Dec 07, 2025 4:28 pm
Did a sac run and the plates load up as they should, but I don't like this build.
The glass is too thin and irregular for my liking.
I left the turns of cotton sting on and stretched a 145mm od X 2.5mm thick silicon o-ring on top the string.
When pushed into the glass, the O-ring laid down between the turns of string and sealed with almost zero leakage.
shadylane wrote: ↑Sun Dec 07, 2025 4:28 pm
Did a sac run and the plates load up as they should, but I don't like this build.
The glass is too thin and irregular for my liking.
Yeah and who wants to use a puny 6" column anyway, when you could be running on an 8" column instead !
shadylane wrote: ↑Sun Dec 07, 2025 4:28 pm
Did a sac run and the plates load up as they should, but I don't like this build.
The glass is too thin and irregular for my liking.
Yes, it's finished and I learned valuable lessons about how difficult it becomes when trying to seal large diameter glass builds.
That and trying to keep the plates perfectly level using only one tree bolt.
Many years ago I thought about building a six incher using a tree.
Pretty much came to the conclusion that you would need 3 tree bolts minimum to keep things level and stable, four posts would be even better.
Copper column and solder them in is easier I think, it also negates any sealing problems.
Glass looks nice but has its downsides.
