4 plate flute plans and build

[acfixer69]

Looks nice and clean. You said a 180 like in the P-trap ? I wanted a bit more room between the column and product condenser for a few reasons but that will work.

[30xs]

Looks nice and clean. You said a 180 like in the P-trap ? I wanted a bit more room between the column and product condenser for a few reasons but that will work.

Thanks for the compliment AC. Yes, I like the look of a 180 on top and a P trap was the largest center to center U that I seen, at least the had a reasonable price tag. My plan B option was two long radius street 90s. I can gain distance out with those, but I’m not sure if I could get down to keep the condenser cooling output level with the output of the dephleg. I’m thinking that may “not” be needed since anything like a gin basket would change the relationship of the two. The problem I had choosing was I don’t have any place local to see the pieces first hand. With the u-bend I could get a hard number. Before I go through the cutting up of the 180, what are the negatives of it? I had asked in the beginning of the thread, but worded it poorly. I agree that I would like to have 1.5-2 times the space between the column and condenser. Three inches is snug, but the 180 was clean and simple. It also afforded me an option that allowed me to show off my lack of soldering skills. Two joins, one on each end, instead of 4 and trying to keep everything plumb and square in the process. I soldered a 2” column earlier in the year, my first soldering ever, then I decided to give the challenge of a flute a shot. I’m open to suggestions, suggestions with pictures a plus. I’m more of a visual and hands on learner. Right now I don’t have a blueprint. More of a fly by the seat of my pants and improvise as I go, if you couldn’t tell. Haha.

[Yummyrum]

Also, a couple shots of the top cap. I’m not sure whether to attach the 180 via ferrule, or soldered directly into the cap. If the output heights being even is beneficial that would help with the decision, depending on which way I have the ability to go

When I built mine , I was trying to cut costs and cut out things like this .
I have kicked myself several times when I wanted to custom configure a new setup and the bends wouldn’t allow it .

So my advise is add a tri-clamp at every change of direction and size . 4”-2”.... make it a component , split the 180° into 2x 90°’s .... that will let you interchange condensers , change angles .

You might be say’n “ but I’m building a 4 plater “ ..... yeah .... for now .... but trust me , you’re a builder too .... you will want to change things down the track

Make it as modular as you can

[30xs]

Yes, the challenge of the build is as something I enjoy. I’m not sure that I’d want to split the 180. With the ferrules being outside fit and the radius it may not go smoothly. A ferrule on my 4x2 and the option to change up the top a bit would be simpler that way. Other than trying to run a Liebig, what would be the advantage/need for being able to angle the condenser?

[acfixer69]

I built mine like this so that I could access the condensers for cleaning when needed and keep the still as low as I could. I still have a problem with low headroom.
Click on pic for proper orientation.

[30xs]

I built mine like this so that I could access the condensers for cleaning when needed and keep the still as low as I could. I still have a problem with low headroom.
Click on pic for proper orientation.

What kind of 4x2 is that? It resembles a bowl reducer. I considered doing a setup similar to that with long radius elbows, but was afraid I wouldn’t keep everything square in the soldering department. With my current pieces I think I’d have room for a 12” neutral section, which probably isn’t enough to even be worth trying. I do like your distance from the column to condenser. My first attempt soldering a tee/90 setup left me a little crooked coming down into the condenser. My 180 was probably closer to a 185 when done. Haha. Even if I go the 180 route I will be able to clean the condenser. The plan is for the shotty to be its own individual piece. I didn’t want to buy the ferrules to make it 100% modular, due to budget, but right now it is four plates, a dephleg with thermo, 4x2, my 180, and the shotty. The 2x1/2 on the shotty will also be removable for cleaning purposes. I have enough 4” to do a second one at a later date, if I happen to want to. I’m just trying to get through the first one for now.

[acfixer69]

I've been following this thread I'm sure you have noticed cause I am interested as to why you are so interested in the water outlet being at a level plan. The common practice with condensers is counter flow and with deflagmaters is the same. I'll add it is best that way but I'll get flamed that the deflag it don't matter and even it don't work that way dew to gravity sucking and cavitation. The 2" x 4" was a days gone by stilldragon bubble ball half heeheeehee man I am gitten old. All crap aside the p-trap 180 may be to close.

[30xs]

I was under the impression the the dephleg was easier to run with the input from the bottom. That thinking had me wondering if the outputs being at the same level may make it easier to get the flow rate needed to the dephleg adjusted easier. I’m glad that someone is following the keep the village idiot from wandering too far off course. If the 180 is too close, I can easily abandon the idea and pursue the double 90 option. If my memory is correct the p-trap would give me three inches between column and condenser. I keep asking questions trying to avoid a problem in the build that could have been avoided. I have read several flute build threads, flute talk a couple times, and all the info that I’ve stumbled onto has a bit of age to it. I know there may be different ways of doing things, ideas, that could be done that may not be seen in the threads that I may not have seen. Just like your guidance on the P-trap. I can get my money back from it, since I haven’t cut it, and could order a few 90s for that price. Thank you, sir.

[acfixer69]

I don't see the p-trap being too close to function I wanted a bit more distance between the deflag and the product condenser for the valves and away from boiler for collection area. As far as feeding the deflagmater goes it will work both ways I suppose I see it done here both ways. I feed from my sump pump to the bottom of the product condenser out the top to a tee that feeds or bypasses the deflag then out the bottom of the deflag thru a valve to regulate the rate of flow. It works great but others do it different but 9 years ago when I was building this rig I had a conversation with Old dog and Rednose about the plumbing and this is what we came up with. maybe the pic will make my jibberish clear.
Again click the pic to orientate don't know why it posting sideways.

[30xs]

Your explanation and photos both made sense. Here’s my question. I remember reading posts when I was building my first shotty that having a coolant flow rate that was too fast can cause a vapor collapse and surging. With your setup there is no way to bring in any supplemental “cold” water to the dephleg. I remember posts talking about having a target temperature for the water exiting the condenser. With your setup being very similar to the way a CCVM is plumbed, with an added bypass between the condenser and dephleg, do you have any issues with huffing or keeping the water cool enough for the dephleg? I was thinking about using a Y and having two separate lines for both the dephleg and the condenser, but with your setup I could just use a T on the input of the dephleg and valve the open side of the T for water diversion and have a valve for exit restriction. I know I’d still need one more valve to be able to control flow rate coming into the system, but I in my little brain it makes sense. Also, in theory, couldn’t it be accomplished using one valve to control incoming water flow, and CPU radiator, and a restriction at the dephleg exit? Once you found the sweet spot on the first valve it would be as simple as flooding the cooling system for full reflux, and killing the fan to allow almost kill the dephleg knock down. I think without putting in a bypass for the radiator to completely stop the flow to dephleg that it may not allow for a complete tails extraction from the boiler though. I’m including a crude drawing of what I’m trying to say. The plumbing side of this thing I have not fully thought out yet, as you can tell. What is the minimum cooling line size that I should even consider?

[acfixer69]

The way I've got mine the condenser has a full flow at all times and the deflag gets a little bit pre-heated during the run witch is a good thing it makes it less finicky and as the water holding tank warms a bit to a steady temperture adjusting valve is not that critical. That said I did have a solenoid valve setup to deflagmater that controled exit water temp and was able to adjust ABV at the spout but that is a different still and a different topic.
I don't understand why the CPU radiator is in the system between them.

[30xs]

I thought full flow to the condenser could often cause surging at the output? The setup I was picturing would allow a slower flow through the condenser and then a slight cooling through the cpu radiator before feeding the dephleg. I have been feeding my current setup from a small creek/drain that comes off the hill beside the house. Fresh cold water all the time and no reservoir. What size reservoir are you running? Do you run any cooling for your reservoir?

[acfixer69]

With a plated column the deflagmater is driving the vapor rate relative to the set reflux ratio to the product condenser. No surging can happen. The deflagmater is the magical piece of the system. It needs imho warmer water to ease thermo shock when adjusting the feed valve. You have a nice creek to feed from so you will find your own sweet spot.
I use a 55gal drum that does need supplemental cooling but in summertime I have a swimming pool that stays a steady 90F

[acfixer69]

Summer pool temp correction it is still at 68F but in the summer still a week or two away will be bout 88F all day long till early September. Opened it today

[30xs]

I was curious to the tank size just in case I move and don’t always have the fresh water supply. I’m pondering your setup, but possibly only running three valves with two independent drains. On valve on the dephleg with it going straight to drain and one on the bypass straight to drain. My question would be does the valve location have a certain requirement? For example, could I put my valve at the end of the return on a reservoir/drain and still function properly from there, or is the restriction needed to be closer to the actual condense and dephleg? I’m thinking it would keep them “loaded” and prevent gravity draining being anywhere, but may be better served at the exit point itself, at least on the dephleg side. The bypass may be fine anywhere in the line. I never thought about the surging being taken care of by the dephleg. That makes sense once you said it. Now it has me thinking I may be really thinking overkill on the condenser, but I would also like to be able to run it on a 2” pot for stripping runs, if I choose to do so. My first one was built with four 1/2” I.d. tubes about 20” wet area. I can strip at two gallon per hour comfortably. That should translate into about 16” if I run a fifth tube or go to the seven 1/2” o.d. tubes. I know the vapor speed would also be a little slower allowing me to possibly to go even shorter. What combination are you running, tube count/length? Congrats on the pool opening. Time to retire the barrel for a few months.

[acfixer69]

The two valves on the product condenser are not for function, only convenience for hose hook up. As I said earlier the product condenser is full run all the time. The bypass valve is full off for full reflux and full open during run. The deflagmater return is the only valve that is tweeked during a run so it needs to be close to the deflag. If it was on a common return it would restrict the product condenser witch is not a safe condition due to vapor leaking by could be possible.

[30xs]

I think a little was lost in translation so I’ll add a little doodle. I wasn’t talking about changing the orientation of the valves, just their location in the line. Moving the valve from the column end of the hose to the drain end of the hose.

[acfixer69]

Schematically they look the same. So that will work.

[30xs]

Schematically they look the same. So that will work.

Ok, thanks. I was wanting to do a flexible hose setup, and having the valves on the drain end would be “cleaner” looking, in my opinion. Only difference would be adjustments would be made at the barrel instead of the column. Since your water is slightly preheated by the condenser, does the ball valve make for a twitchy adjustment? I know I have read of a few using a needle valve because a ball valve was a bit harder to control. I don’t have valves yet, and wondering what would be the better route of travel. If you were to build again would you use ball valves, or would you run a needle valve somewhere instead?

[acfixer69]

I have never felt the need to change from the ball valve once set, I have only minor adjustments through the run. Others do I don't know why. Some use flow meters and globe valves. A globe would be a more correct for throttling.

[DetroitDIY]

I thought full flow to the condenser could often cause surging at the output? ...What size reservoir are you running? Do you run any cooling for your reservoir?

Hey there 30x, been reading along too. Have a few thoughts for you:

I have some ~1300 gph pump. Whatever I don't send to the dephleg I send do the PC. So that can easily be like 15-20 gpm. Never had a huffing problem with my PC on this plated column. My shotgun has (5) 1/2" tubes, roughly 20" long. I did have issues with effectively knocking down all the vapor early on, and added spiraled copper in the tubes which did the trick.

My reservoir is ~40 gallons, I run my rig slow, it always heats up to a point where I want to drain out some hot and add makeup cooler water from the hose. It's a trickle, but to avoid that I think I would need at least (2) 55 gallon drums.

My inlets are on the bottom of both the dephleg and the PC. Everyone seems to do PC with counterflow to produce the max delta T at the inlet for more effective cooling. I don't recall too many cooling the dephleg from the top down... when I was researching 2.5 years back, much of what I saw recommended plumbing as I followed.

Valve location doesn't make a difference. I had mine close to the condensers at one time and now have it roughly 5 feet from on flexible lines (for better adjustability... and I concur with all the advice you're getting to build as modular as possible). No difference as far as I've seen, except with flexible on a longer leash, I can place the valves where they're easy to reach and control.

My cooling flow is kind of like what you've drawn, except I have independent inlet and outlets from the condensers... I run the flow in parallel while you are showing your dephleg in series with your PC. At the end, I join them and feed them through a radiator like you've shown. I see ACFixer is liking his serial flow to "pre-heat" the dephleg water. I can't speak to that much as I've never tried it that way.

I set mine up with ball valves and a gate valve for "fine" control of my dephleg. I've since taken out the gate valve after learning it's a bit "course" and has lash in the handle wind up, and moved over to a needle valve. I've been happy with the needle. I make adjustments in roughly 10 degree increments on it, and +/- 10 degrees makes a difference on my needle.

Good luck!
DetroitDIY

[30xs]

Thanks, Detroit. I remember reading through your build thread. The artistic side of yours was impressive, even down to the design used in the plate holes. I would like to try the etching in a couple spots, but not willing to screw up my 4” with a failed effort. I tried copper plating a brass ferrule using the muriatic acid recipe found in this forum somewhere, but other than turning it red with multiple passes I couldn’t get a coat heavy enough to polish, so my decorative attempts stopped there.

My pump is a 2500 gallon per hour, but that was because I needed the head height to come up out of the little drain and have flow at the condenser. The 1300 I tried stopped flowing at eye level, just didn’t have the head height required.

I’m interested in giving the serial flow a try and see how I like it. Since I plan on running flexible plumbing it will afford me the ability to experiment with the plumbing and see what works best for me. I planned on feeding from the bottom of the dephleg, like most do in other builds, but the serial counter flow on both sounds appealing. I only remember reading a couple that were feeding from the top of the dephleg successfully. I see the preheated and residual water from the open loop as being potentially easier to control.

I’ve located some 58 gallon pickle barrels, if needed, so a reservoir can be made if needed at a later date.

[30xs]

Well after a little delay due to real life getting in the way I made a little progress. I shortened the 4x2 a little more, and polished it. I was also able to get the window ports soldered on, just waiting on a hole saw to arrive to cut out the center of the windows. Here’s a couple photos of the progress.

[30xs]

Only had a few hours to mess around. I rough cut the sight glass holes out and started wet sanding the exterior a bit. I’m wanting to polish it up, but there are a few blemishes that still show after wet sanding. What is the best way to clean them up, or will a good buffing help hide the imperfections?

[Yummyrum]

What kind of imperfections are you talking about 30xs ?
If its dents , the wont come out .
Scratches can be filed and sanded out it not too deep .
Solder can easily be removed by filing and sanding .

The final finish is a matter of personal choice . If you are going to polish it to a mirror finish you should probably clear coat it . I found that imperfections do stand out more on a polished surface so I prefer to have a satin finish . I achieve that with a stainless steel scrubber.I don’t clear coat my stills , just let them patina up . Sure I love looking at a new shiny copper still but the novelty wears off and it becomes a tool . Mine has copped a lot of extra dints and scratches since I first made it , but so long as it still pumps out the goodness I don’t mind .

[30xs]

I was polishing to close mirror. My main reason was it seemed easier than keeping a brushed finish uniform between the pieces. The imperfections are scratches, but if I can’t get them all out I’m not heartbroken. I do have some protects clear to use to preserve whatever finish I end up with. I did polish out a piece a month or so ago and just let it set. It started getting a deeper red color that was slightly lower luster. It was a Mother’s polish and buff. Setting in the basement, open air. If I could figure out how to get that finish on everything I think it would be perfect, I’m thinking the heat after polish will start to take me to that look, but unsure. I’m attaching a photo of the scratches. They’re nothing I can’t live with, just trying to minimize the appearance as much as possible.

[zapata]

you could TRY sanding it out, but at least that first one looks deeper than I'd bother with. The second one could probably be filed/sanded smooth.

If it really bothers you, you could take the approach of that Japanese art that repairs broken pottery with precious metals. Fill it with solder, solder shines up pretty too ya know. A low silver bearing solder like stay brite or stay brite 8 if you really must have precious metals. Just flux it, melt some solder in there, sand smooth and continue your polishing. She'll have a pretty scar she can show off to the other pipes while making a few drinks. It won't be mistaken for a ding if it gleams...

[30xs]

you could TRY sanding it out, but at least that first one looks deeper than I'd bother with. The second one could probably be filed/sanded smooth.

If it really bothers you, you could take the approach of that Japanese art that repairs broken pottery with precious metals. Fill it with solder, solder shines up pretty too ya know. A low silver bearing solder like stay brite or stay brite 8 if you really must have precious metals. Just flux it, melt some solder in there, sand smooth and continue your polishing. She'll have a pretty scar she can show off to the other pipes while making a few drinks. It won't be mistaken for a ding if it gleams...

Thanks, Zapata. I hadn’t really thought about a solder fill. I’m using stay brite 8 on everything, so that wouldn’t be a problem to find. A couple are closer to the windows than I want to mess with, but a wet rag does wonders, if I go that route. I may just leave them as they are. I’m sure that time will add a few more marks. I was planning on putting a coat of ever clear on it to try an preserve the finish once done. I had thought about a clear powder coating, since it’s a little more resilient to bumps and bruises, but I’m not sure that I can get it in the oven comfortably. I may test a small piece to see if the heat of curing the powder would bring out the red color a bit during the heat cycle? I wish I had taken a picture of the piece I polished and let set before I soldered it up. The contrast of the deep red copper against the brass ferrule was nice. It would also probably help hide the little imperfections nicely.

I am doing the baffles in my condenser the route that you had posted back some time ago. Spacing baffles 2” apart and I need to go look it up to see the relief % that you quoted.

[Yummyrum]

I agree with Zapata on those scratches .
I heard a few guys that have clear coated their stills say that the copper will go that red colour just with the heat of running the still .It’s a good thing its the look you want .

[30xs]

Decided to leave the battle scars, we all have them anyways. Started the polish and I’m happy enough with the preliminary rubbing. I don’t think I’ll get a chance to polish out the other pieces and shoot it before vacation, but it’s getting closer. I’m sure after it setting for a few days it will need another light polish and lacquer thinner wipe down prior to shooting. Need to finish up my 180, plates, and PC. The “battle scarred beauty” is getting closer