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Hi Guys, great site.

In my search for a still that was designed and fabricated with quality in mind I soon realized that there must not be many manufactures or there just isn’t a demand for craftsmanship in the field.

Is there a demand for well designed, high quality reflux stills?
High end craftsmanship with user ease in mind is something I haven’t found.
Am I looking in the right places?
I am an ornamental steel fabricator and hands on educated machine designer.

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Or choose a design from something posted on this site and build it yourself.

Since distilling is illegal almost everywhere, unless you jump through all the government hoops, there is little demand and therefore few true manufacturers.
Most of these high-end stills start in the 10's of thousand dollar range.
For us hobbiests, we are trying to find something that can do the job without costing us a half years wages to build. The few well made hobbie stills available seem to be stuck on internal reflux designs. They do work, once you learn how to run them, but there is better technology available that can be built cheaper.

This is what I am saying.

I am interested in designing and building high quality hobby stills that meet the needs of each individual hobbyist; be it, internal reflux, pot, valve reflux, fixed reflux, or what ever we can imagine.

Say in the 300 to 2500 dollar range.

Do you guys see a market at all.

Only a small one. Doubt you could make a living from it alone. But might be a nice supplement to your income. You also got some established competition.

Oh, and forget the 'internal reflux' design (the one with cooling tubes through the lower section of the column). Bad design.

This is the internal reflux that I am building now. The trick is the feed water leaves the top of the condenser through the center of the tube that feeds the vapor to the condenser.

You can completely kill all reflux, or open one or both lower and upper reflux valves that will give you complete control of reflux column temps.

I could even install internal mechanical thermostats and automatically control reflux column temp from bottom to top.

I'm going to put the one I am building now on the market.

My next one will be a vapor management in a three inch tube. Or possibly a hybrid vapor management internal reflux simply to give more column temp control.

The basic design principle you are using here is referred to as cooling management, not internal reflux. The difference is that in CM all the reflux condenser tubes are at the top of the column, while with internal reflux some of them are lower down the column.

Gotta say that particular version of yours looks both complicated and costly (extra valves, fittings, etc). Probably much easier to control the reflux by simply varying coolant flow through one set of reflux condenser tubes using one valve. It also is wasting valuable column height (ie packing height) by stacking the condenser tubes like that.

The two most popular basic designs we have so far are VM and LM.

CM is not popular among the hobby community as it requires almost constant attention and adjustment to the coolant flow rate, (though it can be incorporated with VM for effective heads removal).

Now im learning something. Tell me how im looking at this wrong.

(cooling the bottom of the column manages the temp of the column. Cooling the vapor at the top of the column sends the vapor back down the column to re vaporize, thus managing the vapor.)

My theory must be wrong or it contradicts the lesson learned today.

I like the idea of sleaving the column for column cooling and put a JCB fitting at the condenser to column mount. It could be removed or turned at any angle, with a little creative engineering. Whats your opinion?

The column in the picture was designed specifically to look over the top. This particular one will have a polished mirror finish and a stainless steel bullet proof case with padding. It fits in it perfect. The case will be made to stand upright and serve as a column stand. Included will be a stainless steel braided hose to go from boiler to column.

You can say, kind of a show piece if you will. My total cost, case and column = 400$. Half that is the optional case. Oh yeah, and aloooooot of labor.



I could do this all day long; bouncing these idea off of you that is.

Oh yeah , in the pictured column i can remove the internals of the gate valves, and install mechanical thermostats and keep the column at consistent temps. I think?

By the way, there are no fittings other than end caps. I have been building things my whole life and fittings seem to make things look more like a puzzle than a fitted show piece. Just my opinion. Craftsmanship is what i am trying to sell.

How well does the LM column work with the coil sitting in the top of the tube? This looks like the Ideal setup to me.

quantum, I see several problems with your interpretation of how reflux works at first glance... It appears that you think you can control the plate separation of the entire column by regulating only the top half in three sections... While a clever notion, I don't think it will prove practical in real world application... My gut tells me that you're going to have a better chance of throwing the whole column into a constant state of imbalance, to a point where it will never reach optimal equilibrium... But, then again, you're welcome to prove me wrong...

The only time that brute force plate separation control might be worthwhile would be for fuel production... This has already been done, using automation, with the Charles 803 continuous column...

If you haven't used a reflux still to date, and are familiar with how they work in practical application, it will do little good to try to design one... Upon re-reading this topic, and noticing that all 8 of your posts to date are in this topic, I'm inclined to believe this to be the case... You have to understand the underlying theory and application before you can improve upon it and attempt to profit from sales of the design... We already have far too many folks ripping people off by selling them inferior products based on flawed designs, and we don't need another... Sorry if it sounds harsh, but that's the way I see it...

Gotta give you an A+ for enthusiasm... Welcome to the forums and good luck...

Not harsh at all, That is why I am here.
You are right. I have never run a still, I intend on running this still after fabrication. The parts are all cut fitted taken back apart and being polished today.

Without seeing the internals of the design i posted it is hard to see how it works.
It can simply be a (like a pot still with a long column) by only opening the top valve.
You can open only the top reflux valve or what ever works best.
I dont know what works best without the hands on, and you better believe i will know more on how it performs soon.

(cooling the bottom of the column manages the temp of the column. Cooling the vapor at the top of the column sends the vapor back down the column to re vaporize, thus managing the vapor.)

My theory must be wrong or it contradicts the lesson learned today.

Your theory is wrong.

I gotta agree with Rad here, your enthusiasm is great and very welcome, but you are rushing things and clearly have not wrapped your head around the basic theory. I have no doubt you can build some fine columns, but you gotta understand how they work first.

You can get seriously hurt if you do this stuff wrong.

I can also pretty well guarantee nobody is going to buy that first design you put up, so don't waste your time building it. (Oops, too late it seems. Oh well.)

Is some one going to let me in on the theory?

Top of this page, in the upper right, there's a link to the Parent Site... Once you absorb that you can come back and learn more here in the forums and ask informed questions regarding any blank or ambiguous areas...

But you'll still need to build and run a still... And if it is of your own design you'd be better off having several people try the design so it's "Tried and True" before trying to build and sell them... The quickest way designs get perfected is by mutual use and improvements...

More power to ya quantum.

Havin' more choices as where to buy for folks that don't wanna build their own still is good.

But... Hook is right, all designs are not created equal, and a poor one either doesn't sell, or frustrates a newb and hurts the hobby.

I strongly suggest ya look at the sections on theory here and at the parent site so ya can learn more than just how they are built, but how they operate. There are also some very interestin' posts here on the theory of VM stills... it appears that snuffy (and a couple others) are drivin' the design and research. Read his posts about VM theory... the VM stills seem to be QUITE popular recently, and he's turnin' some "established" theory on it's ear.

LM stills are a timetested classic. They work well, and have been around long enough to get the bugs out, and have a good deal of improvements made to the design.

I wish you well in yer venture.




PS: the only mention ya made as to metal was in yer first post. Ya said yer a steel fabricater. Stills would have to be made with stainless. We have a member here that lives in Vietnam who fabricates stainless column stills. I doubt that anyone in north america could beat his prices (even after shipping). Not tryin' to discourage ya, just impartin' info. I wish ya the best.

There are no differences in the two stills pictured other than the bottom cooling line in the column.

I guess this is more of a fractionating column.
All is Copper by the way.
the column and condenser are 2"

Quantum, both of the drawin's ya posted are bad designs.

Anyone "in the know" wouldn't buy them, and anyone who didn't know enough and did buy them would be upset once they learned more.

I'm ALL for you makin' and sellin' stills. (We even have a classified section where you would get to sell them free of charge.) But please read the still design info that a few of us pointed out to you.

We tell folks what we think around here. If yer sellin' expensive poorly designed stills we will tell folks that ask. If ya sell well designed stills we will tell anyone that asks that they are good.

Don't get mad, and stop bein' hung up on those two designs. I suspect that their nice lookin' blueprints are trickin' the fabricater in you to think that are as slick as their BP's... they aren't.

You don't HAVE to understand still design to make and sell stills obviously, but please trust us that are immersed in this hobby when we say that if ya make and sell those designs you'll be shootin' yerself and the hobby in the foot.

Lets forget about selling stills for a moment.

If i wanted to build a personal still for good corn whiskey and high proof alcohol. what still would you recommend?

I want this still to work so bad. this is a picture of the internals.

Here is a re-design with the same materials that i have on hand.
Give me your opinion.

Right now the rage is Vapor Management (VM) because initial investment isn't any worse than other designs and is very forgiving as far as operation... I'm running Liquid Management (LM) but would like to switch to VM at some point... I have virtually no use for flavored spirits at then moment and have more neutral than I could ever hope to drink...

You want a gradient to develop along the column that will stack up the components in layers.

The extra bells and whistles will interfere with equilibration.

have you seen the latest picture i just put up. I'm trying to make the materials i have
will this work?
its kind of a hybrid. What do you think?

You'll only want one reflux return. At the top.

Not two at different heights.

Put up some pictures when ya get it built! looking forward to it.

By the way, stills are like potato chips, you can't build just one!

I was thinking more along complexity of the build... I was wondering how all of those joints would be sealed... Joints inside joints can be tricky, or did I misinterpret the diagram... Thought about solder, braze, tig, and then thought, hmmm...

you are seeing it right.

there is an elbow at the top of the down tube in the condenser the 1/2" pipe runs through a 5/8 hole drilled in elbow.

the whole assembly drops in a slot at the top of the condenser and the cap is notched to fit around the 1" pipe to center thus hiding the notch.

on the column the 1/2 inch pipe runs through the center of the 1" hole and out a 5/8 hole on other side. it is all put together by silver salter with a thick bead built around all joints.

schnell wrote:You'll only want one reflux return. At the top.

Not two at different heights.

Put up some pictures when ya get it built! looking forward to it.

By the way, stills are like potato chips, you can't build just one!

there is only one reflux return at 5" below the top of condenser. the top tube is the water out and for added vapor management, i think.

the reflux return has plates set to be able to hold fluid high enough as to not allow vapor to force its way in the reflux control tube.

the top 1" tube has a slight lip on the column side to prevent fluid from reentering the column.