dan wrote: I don't know how Kentucky Shinner can sell these so cheap with all the time it takes to build them!!
I'm sure he will appreciate that observation Dan. Begs the question,,,,,how much would you pay your self to build these things?.... 70-80 bucks an hour in my area and that only works if you got work waiting for you......
I wish I could pay myself the going rate for my service. We are sitting at $93 an hour. I went on a call yesterday after hours service call. Minimum 4 hours at time and a half. $139.50 x 4 = $558 for one hour of work. Man I wish that all went in my pocket! I just hope KS is at least making something. For his efforts. And kudos to him for keeping it affordable. But as many as he has built I bet he has the builds fine tuned down to nothing now. After your done Dan you will probably would be able to whip one out in no time. Your doing a fair job of it now.
Thank you guys for all of your encouragement!! Here are a few more pictures....of course, of my first attempt at a shotgun dephlegmater. I still need to add the easy flange to the column and the dephlegmater but this gets me a little closer to being finished with flute #1 for my brother in the north. So here is the fluxed dry fit......
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A little bit more progress today..... I made a trip to the local metal recycling center today and picked up some material. I was able to trade my scrap copper for a 42" stick of 2" type L and a 40" stick of 1" type K. What a sweet deal that was. While I was there I noticed some stainless steel ball valves that were being sold as scrap and picked them up for $1.00 each..... Wow!!
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I made some progress on the perforated plate tree for one of my column builds today. I used the 1" copper pipe that I picked up at the recycling center for my down comber cups.
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After I finished my perforated plate tree I added the easy flanges to my Dephlagmater and top of my column and soldered up the vapor take-off to the product condenser......
- Dan
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olddog wrote:Looking good Dan, if you cross drill a hole at the base of the downcomers, you can sit the downcomer tube in the cup without the fear of blocking it.
OD
Thank you OD!! I held the bottom of the downcomber up 1/4" from the bottom of the cup which should be enough based on all of your previous post and collective information. I used the 1" pipe for the cups in case I need to up size my downcombers to 3/4" like you suggested in the future. Thank you for all of your advice!!
Prairiepiss wrote:That thing is looking good Dan. So are you keeping the first one or sending it up north?
The first one is going up north but the second one will be identical to the first one with the only difference being a little TLC on the finish. My brother can polish his own flute if you know what I mean.....
Just thought I would add a few more pictures of my second dephlagmater and product condenser. The design I came up with on the dephlagmater is a 5" shotgun condenser inside a 8" long piece of 4" pipe. Coolant will flow in from the bottom controlled by a ball valve and out from the top. The dephlagmater has two therm-o-wells one above the shotgun and one below to take constant temperature readings. The heating controller I am building will have a third temperature probe to control the temperature of the wash in my 15.5 gallon keg.
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Dan,,,,how and why are you planing to master temp control over your boiler charge? Or am I misunderstanding your plan?
The abv in your boiler will determine the wash temp and your desired collection speed will likely determine your adjustments.
Most folks do try and collect with a toothpic to pencil lead sized stream. Collect any slower and ya coulda just built, ,,,,,,,6 or 7 boks.
LWTCS wrote:Dan,,,,how and why are you planing to master temp control over your boiler charge? Or am I misunderstanding your plan?
The abv in your boiler will determine the wash temp and your desired collection speed will likely determine your adjustments.
Most folks do try and collect with a toothpic to pencil lead sized stream. Collect any slower and ya coulda just built, ,,,,,,,6 or 7 boks.
LWTCS - I plan on using a digital temperature control instead of a triac or phase angle controller for my 5,500W heating element. Here is a link to the product that I bought..... http://www.lightobject.com/JLD612-Dual- ... r-P43.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I also bought my SSR, heat sink for SSR, and Thermocouple from the same company. Total with shipping for two controllers was less than $150.00USD. Now all I need are the enclosures, wire, and plugs and I should be done for less than $200 for both. A digital temperature control will control the amount of power going to the heating element with a 0.2% accuracy and with a 10' thermocouple cord I can also experiment with putting the temp probe in the dephlagmater. This is just one method for controlling your electric heating element and therefore your column. I am still very new to this hobby and am making most of my decisions based on reading about what other members have done and the results they have gotten. I know there will be a lot more to learn once I actually start making some product......
dan, you'd better do a bit more research into distillation theory because you don't control distillation by controlling wash temperature in the boiler... The wash temperature as well as the vapor temperature regulate themselves based on the ratio of water to alcohol in both the wash and vapor components... Don't waste your money on what looks like a fancy controller that won't help do anything other than add Wow factor... A simple triac based controller will do exactly what needs to be done...
Dan. I love what you are doing. I am not familiar with that particular controller. It maybe capable of monitoring two or more thermocouple locations at a time.
I have several digital controllers that could do the job. One of them quite small and simple. You cant program ramps and starts but it will manage and hold.
Consider this. One controller running your SCR and heating element. Another controller (or another program in the one you have) monitoring a head temp thermocouple and controlling a mod motor opening and closing a gate valve for cooling water to the dephlag.
After your done Dan you will probably would be able to whip one out in no time. 
Your doing a fair job of it now. 
