Home Distiller

Here is how to make a copper sankey adapter...
I use 6 gage bare copper grounding wire purchased at Lowe's for $.86 a foot. I foot will make two if they are generous like they were with me. You also need 2" copper pipe.
Start by hammering the wire into square. Medium raps down the length of wire for about 7". Turn on it's side and repeat down the legth to make your round wire square. Now hammer your square into a wedge by hammering at an angle along the length on one side only. This will begin to curve the wire as well. Now I use vise grips to help bend the wire around the pipe. This will take some time to get a good tight fit. One it is close, it is time to cut the excess off. I use wire cutters and a file to clean up the ends. It will take more tweeking to get a good fit.

Excellent tutorial.

Now you clean the pieces well, apply flux and reassemble. Time to solder. Stand it on it's end and apply a heavy bead of solder. Use a file to make sure the bottom is nice and flat. It is now ready to go on the keg. Use a cork gasket! Clamp it down.

brilliant!

i just ordered some sheet copper to hammer into shape. i plan on making something similar with the scotch onion shape.

this thread was definitely the inspiration

On the portugese Iberian copper pot web site, they show making their "onion" shaped pieces by starting with a cylinder and reducing the ends. Then they start with a frustum and hammer that into a bell that looks like a trombone and then attaching the two by rivets and braze. I believe I will try this method first.

thats what i was planing on doing as well Pint. i have no idea how it will turn out but my idle hands need something to tinker with

Nice one, Rumbull.

Amazing work there Rumbull. Brilliant idea.

nice work rum bull...
it wasent to soft after silversoldering..?
nice ans sturdy..

decoy wrote:it wasent to soft after silversoldering..?
nice ans sturdy..

I tested the strength before adding the adapter to the new still head. I made the first one on the end of a 4' stick of copper. I was able to pick up the keg and tilt it around putting alot of side and lifting pressure on the flange. I did it again with this one I made last night. Here is a picture to demonstrate that it is a strong piece.

RumBull wrote:Pulled most of the bits from the local metal scrap yard. Even as scrap, copper is so expensive!
The sphere was a copper float. It had a threaded nipple on it. I cut a 2" hole where the nipple was and a 3" hole in the other.

Nice job man, you should be proud

As for copper being expensive.........I've been siiting on a few hundred kilos that I thought I would cash in for christmas.....well!!! the world economy crashed didn't it, if I had of cashed it in 2 months ago I would be smilin', but it dropped 43% this month

There's always next christmas. it won't go rancid...

just want to say i tried making the sankey connector and it worked beautifully. i used a big heavier gauge wire, #4 i think. it took some work to move all that copper into shape but nothing too bad.

a ball peen hammer and a few annealing cycles works it like butter

I recently upped my column size to 2" copper pipe. So I could solder it to my mixing bowl head, I took a body hammer and peened over the edge of the copper pipe to make a flat flange on the end. It came out looking very similar to what is being done here. I used heavy wall copper pipe, which may be different than what others are working with. The reason I bring it up is it only took me about ten minutes to do. It actually surprised me how little time it took and how easy it was. If it would work with the sankey clamp, I think it would be worth a try.

I think that haveing a wedge shape is important to getting a good tight seal with the tri-clover clamp. As the clamp squeezes tighter, the wedge creates the down pressure on the gasket. I suppose with flour paste it may not be needed.

thinking of something similar for my keg

solder it op just like shown, then spin it on the lathe to hone the shape.

on my original keg still I cut off the original tri-clover fitting and welded on a 2 1/2" one, not sure how much it helped, but its what I had around.

I am going to work with this style adapter (making 2 adapters). However, I am going to use a 2" union. Have a little stick out on the bottom, and solder it in. Then solder on a wedge shaped "washer", and flare the bottom of the 2" sticking out of the coupler a little, so that it can be soldered to the wedge.

That way, simply tri clamp a 1/2 open coupler (open end up of course), and then a column, or pot head can be stuck into the coupler and sealed with flour paste.

I will try to get pix, as I work on this over the holiday's (whenever the wife gives me a second of "free" time).

H.

Husker wrote:(whenever the wife gives me a second of "free" time).

Man isn't that the truth!!!! Sounds like a good idea, if I am uderstanding it right. Love to see the pictures.

Bump.

Bumping this topic. and making a copy of some of the adapter posts, to place into the sticky post about making copper adapters in the 'related HW' forum.

H.

Hey Rumbull, I keep coming back to this post as I love the still design! Aesthetics is half the fun IMO.

Now that you have had this beast for awhile, what is your experience with the pre-condenser that you have in the Lyne arm portion?

Have you tried runs using/not using it as a comparison and does this affect the rum flavour at all or just allow quicker operation by knocking down vapour temp before condenser? Just curious at how well it worked. Sorry for the 20 questions, just re-read topic and couldn't find any note of it. I am looking at re-making my pot still head with this as inspiration (hope you don't mind).

Cheers.

Don't mind at all! This still head performs like a dream.
The precondenser works like have a very long tapered arm. It colapses the vapor in a short length that would happen in a much longer length without it. I got the idea from reading a post about the how a long tappered arm works better than an abrupt reduction is pipe diameter. I wanted a compact still head with the bennefits of the larger ones. It does not effect the flavor at all because it sends the spirit to the outlet rather than back into the still. All it does in speed up the collection rate and allows for less water running through the condenser. I have ran it without the precondeser and I had to turn up the water by about 1/3 if I were to estimate.

Ciao Rumbull, congratulations for still, very, very beautiful.
Did you use pure tin for soldering?
What the height of the column, which the column height of the ball up and what is the thickness of copper??
Forgive me for asking too many questions , tank you, ciao.

I just used a lead free solder from the hardware store.
The still head is about 15" to the peak so about 12" or 13" to the first angle. Not sure which you are asking about but roughly 2" to the ball and another 6" after the ball.
I don't know the thickness of the copper, it was a piece of scrap. The thickness looks the same as what I have in standard 1.5" piece of copper pipe from the hardware store. Hope that helps. Ciao!

Hello, I write the measures directly on the photo? Thanks

Super Super pretty, nice work

As everyone has already said, great design.
I'm building a new still and am planning on giving this design a try. Not sure if I'll be able to find an economical onion though...

Thanks for posting all the helpful info.

ok after looking at alot of still designs, this is my favorite, nice job rumball, I am getting ready to start building this design, can i get some more details on how the condenser attaches to the arm, & what are the two little pipes at the end of the arm for? sorry for the dumb questions, just want to get a better idea of what im building, have a master plumber helping me with the project, & will be using a 15.5 gallon keg boiler with electric heat, only thing I got worth using from my purchase from turbostomper.com, before I ever found this website!

what size onion did you use? i have access up to 12 inch onion floats, bigger the better?

DCT wrote:what size onion did you use? i have access up to 12 inch onion floats, bigger the better?

5.5 inches, I felt that was praportional to the 3" pipe but I suppose bigger could be better?

DCT wrote:more details on how the condenser attaches to the arm

I used a 1.5" to 3/4" reducer with a 3/4" bronze union.

DCT wrote:what are the two little pipes at the end of the arm for

Precondenser that makes the short tapered arm act as though it was much longer. I run the warm water exiting the condenser into the precondenser which is just a loop, a cold finger. It begins to cool and collapse the vapor. It will work fine without it though.

ok, im going to try a 10 inch sphere with 3inch pipe, will let you know how it work, did you 2inch from keg to sphere?
thanks