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LWTCS wrote:Proper would be 95 or better,,,,,one assumes.

If I ad feints to my run, I can get 94ABV to start with, but onece I have taken foreshots and heads, it usually settles down to 92ABV for the rest of the hearts.
I reckon with 10 plates, Wayne will be making fuel for his racecar.


OD

olddog wrote:

LWTCS wrote:Proper would be 95 or better,,,,,one assumes.

If I ad feints to my run, I can get 94ABV to start with, but onece I have taken foreshots and heads, it usually settles down to 92ABV for the rest of the hearts.
I reckon with 10 plates, Wayne will be making fuel for his racecar.


OD

Fuel for my bloody race car Not a chance i can buy that shit cheap enough or get a sponser to pay for it.

By the way how is it looking have you had a chance to polish it yet

Cheers: Dolikeadrink

Here is a pic of some plates I just finished today for bgrizzles build... I still have to add the cups for catching the downcomer. They really turned out nice though.. 6 plates are allot of little friggin holes to drill... whewww. Onward now...

those look good KS. i guess i could just count, but i thought that it would be easier to ask,,,,,, is that the "template" hole pattern,,, and if not,, are there more,, and what size?
thanks
spooky

Mr.Spooky wrote:those look good KS. i guess i could just count, but i thought that it would be easier to ask,,,,,, is that the "template" hole pattern,,, and if not,, are there more,, and what size?
thanks
spooky

this is a pattern I laid out spooky. It has I think 90 holes in each plate and they are 3/32 each.

Here's my 98% finished 3 bubble plate, thermometer and glass cutter are still in the post somewhere .

Are you running separate cooling systems on this rig, or are you going to use the cooling control manifold?


OD

OD, The plan was to use pump on the condenser and town water on the dephlamator , the dephl's don't sound like they need much water when there running after the plates are full. If my pump was better I'd try a garden Y splitter with little on-off taps.

lordyd wrote:OD, The plan was to use pump on the condenser and town water on the dephlamator , the dephl's don't sound like they need much water when there running after the plates are full. If my pump was better I'd try a garden Y splitter with little on-off taps.

thats what iv done.. i have a 35 gal water tank with a submersable pump and the garden splitter that your talking about. it works great,,,, though my water tank could be a little bigger.
thats a really nice lookin flute BYW how tall is the column?
spooky

lordyd wrote:Here's my 98% finished 3 bubble plate, thermometer and glass cutter are still in the post somewhere .

There ya go, your doing good man, be sure and place a pic of your rig in the flute family thread.. I look forward to reading about your results.. I think you will really like it when you get her up.. I dont remember what kind of plates are you using in your build?

Spooky: 80cm to the start of the dephlamator, I can add a few more plates if needed.
Rockchucker: my build is close to yours , only problem I had is the tight-ass copper cap makers, my first caps were 12mm so I decided to weld 2 together to get the height I needed ,lol my new batch of caps were 10mm hi
KS:I'll do a better post when I Finnish her off but that may be a month or so the way work's going.

i get it now lordyd,,, your one of those "closet builders" LOL
how did you do the plates????? is that a removeable plate tree??? have you already answered these questions????
that plate tree looks very bullet proof. i like it!!!
spooky

Rockchucker:I drilled 1/8 holes around the edge of the base cap then brazed 2 caps together (gave me about 22mm height) and put a 1/2 in copper pipe up the end like a lollipop, I leave a little finger on the end of the 1/2 pipe for a depth gauge when I poke it in, saves any worry on the pipe slipping in to far when your welding.
Spooky: the tree is removable but it's a bit tight, wish I silver soldered the sight glasses as brazing did warp to pipe a small amount .I had a 20cm 4" pipe left over which I used to test fit the plates and also used it to align the tree to weld in the 1/2 spine dead straight through the trays.Used the electric drill trick to get the plates round.I can post a pic of my huge workshop if you want .

i kinda thought thats how you did the walls around the plates. thats a good idea... wish id though of that when i was doing mine
thanks for showin that! its amazing how "individual" one of these flutes can turn out. its suprises me how each one has a little something different,... alls i got to do now is leaarn how to drive mine .
spooky

Yea mines %85 copy from other peoples designs with a few differences, I'm running gas so I wanted a long out put tube rather than an attached parrot in case a spill happened.
Also Olddog's idea to use a 4" angle grinder disc to fit sight glasses to the 4" pipe works well ,did my 3 in 4 minutes by hand.

I was playing with my camera tonight taking some pics of the build I am presently working on and I got a couple of pretty cool pics of the plates installed. I took the pic through the hole for the sight glasses.. i just thought is was kind of neat looking and wanted to share with you guys.

I had to make 10 sight glasses for Dolikeadrink's monster column, to get them all the same height and profile to surface mount on the 4"columns, I decided to use the angle grinder method with a 4"grinding disc to cut the profile.
I got some brass unions, being a threaded cylinder with threaded coupling which screw into each end. With one of the screw fitting screwed in I then cut off the hex. The face of this fitting provides a good flat surface for the glass and seals. Now with the other fitting screwed right in, I put it into the small vice I use for my drill press, which I have marked to get the position right every time, this now fits into my angle grinder attachment to cut the required profile. After cutting the "meat"out of the fitting, a final skim across with the grinder will give a perfect surface to mount on the column It means I can make all ten fittings the same height and with a profile to fit the column perfectly. I will then tin the ground surface with a heavy coat of silver solder, position on the column, and then apply heat to the column until it melts the tinned solder again providing a perfect clean joint, I then drill through the fitting with a hole saw on my drill press to make the hole through the fitting into the column.


OD

man I wish I could find that kind of union over here... they are really nice.. I love the wide area for attaching to the column. What are those called OD

They are just called tubular couplers and sockets, the wide surface occurs because you create a double thickness by having a socket screwed into the coupler and then cutting off the hex leaving the threaded portion left in the coupler.


OD

how did the angle grinder trick work out OD? im asuming that there was no problems with the grinding weel wearing out? those look awsome!
spooky

Mr.Spooky wrote:how did the angle grinder trick work out OD? im asuming that there was no problems with the grinding weel wearing out? those look awsome!

I managed to get all 10 done without any change in profile, but the disc was loosing its square face towards the end and becoming more rounded.



od

WOW OD
They look great Excellent work as always, The courier company rang me and said there is a customs problem in WA at the moment, They are doing a Drug blitz and searching just about everything that comes in, It could take up to 10 working days to get to you

Cheers: Dolikeadrink

so since my plates arent perfectally round,,,, iv got an alternate idea. i think that im gonna soulder some heavy ga. copper ground wire around the top edges of each plate to hopefually create a pool on the plate.. my question is,,, how tall do yall think that the "ring " should be?
thanks
spooky

Hey spook if there not tight around the wall no ring will help hold the liquid because all the vapour will rise around the out side of the plate. I think. But I suppose you would still catch all the liquid on the way back down but it would not be as high proof as od and ks because all the vapour isnt bubbling through the holes in the plate. I think. Just what im thinking.

But if you still wanted to do it goin by ks videos I would guesd 1/2 - 3/4 inch?

olddog wrote: It means I can make all ten fittings the same height and with a profile to fit the column perfectly.

006.JPG

I will then tin the ground surface with a heavy coat of silver solder, position on the column, and then apply heat to the column until it melts the tinned solder again providing a perfect clean joint, I then drill through the fitting with a hole saw on my drill press to make the hole through the fitting into the column.


OD

That is some nice outside-the-box thinking OD, you oughta move to NZ with an attitude like that

And the results look tip-top as well Perfect all around really.. nice!

Thorn_veritas wrote:Hey spook if there not tight around the wall no ring will help hold the liquid because all the vapour will rise around the out side of the plate. I think. But I suppose you would still catch all the liquid on the way back down but it would not be as high proof as od and ks because all the vapour isnt bubbling through the holes in the plate. I think. Just what im thinking.

But if you still wanted to do it goin by ks videos I would guesd 1/2 - 3/4 inch?

all i can do is give it a shot...... but if it dont work out , al i gotta do is pull the plates out and build another tree... but this time ill have my plates built for me.... cutting the perfect circle with sheetmetal snips is harder than it seems .
spooky

Have you tried the drill press grind down method? Ie insert plate in drill press with threaded rod then use file to slowly grind away at sides until you get pefect or close fit? Its not safe in anyway shape or form but it works. ( I dont want to be preached to about saftey in the workshop either guys )

If you really wanted to get tricky you could mount the file on a horizontal threaded rod and slowly move it in until you had it perfect. Again unsafe but it works.

But remember to set the file on the side of the plate that it wont catch on. Ie away from the plate. If you know what I mean.

I take no responsibilty for anyones action using this method. Its upto to decide if you want to try this method.

Thorn_veritas wrote:Have you tried the drill press grind down method? Ie insert plate in drill press with threaded rod then use file to slowly grind away at sides until you get pefect or close fit? Its not safe in anyway shape or form but it works. ( I dont want to be preached to about saftey in the workshop either guys )

If you really wanted to get tricky you could mount the file on a horizontal threaded rod and slowly move it in until you had it perfect. Again unsafe but it works.

But remember to set the file on the side of the plate that it wont catch on. Ie away from the plate. If you know what I mean.

I take no responsibilty for anyones action using this method. Its upto to decide if you want to try this method.

I crafted up a few of these for fun and to see if it worked and I dont belive its much less safe than a full speed lathe.
Common sense is what you need to do this right.

Keep your drill press on the lowest speed you can. Take tiny graduations. Dont go fast. Wear gloves and eyewear and make sure that you are abrading it in such a way that the copper particles and the file ( if it catches) will go AWAY from you. As long as you are firmly bolted in on both the table and the plate, you really should not have any problem with this. If you are even over heating, that means you are being too agressive. I did it with two SS plates and it worked like a charm. If you are having trouble with the plates distrorting, just sandwhich two wooden cutouts from a hole saw on each side to minimize the flex.

Just go slow, because you can take it off, but you cant put it back..

Im glad im not the only 1 that does this. Work well hey scottish boy gets the job done nice and clean.

Im glad you do it to though I thought some guys would grill me ha ha

Remember stay safe and wear protection ( best obscured from work ) and not the kind you wear on a holiday in thailand.

SB I used your drill press and file method for the last build, it resulted in plates with a perfect fit, I doubt if you could have put the smallest feeler guage between the plate and the column wall, the fot was that good, without your idea, otherwise I could have only achieved this with a lathe.
I also mounted the plates with 4 pieces of hard silver solder rod to form a plate cage, I just put 4 extra holes around the perimeter to take the rods and soft soldered them to the plate, this keeps the plate perfectly flat when you slide the plates into the column.



OD