New Take on a Great Design... ODs Magic Flute - Mark 2...

[Samohon]

OK Guys, OD has given me the honour of bestowing this upon you... OD and I have been working on designing a flute that can be easier and cheaper to build. We have used a different methodology in trying to achieve this but when plans were laid, even the best laid ones, the trade-off would either be cash or time, but not both. This will take a little longer to build, but will be significantly cheaper. A still like this can be made cheaper, but at a trade-off in the time it takes to build it. Bear in mind, these builds are pushing home distillation into a whole new era, once you have one of these, you wont need to build another one IMO.

It is based on the internal structure OD used on the Stumpy build. Gone are the 3 expensive reducers, one 4" coupler is still required, but there is a simple work-around for this. The top-cap above the vapour chamber and shotgun, can be made from some thin copper sheet as there is no weight put onto the top of this design. The weight of the product output and plumbing is carried by 2 struts, (The vapour Pipe) and the other attached at the top of the Graham condenser. The Graham product condenser can be swapped for a 14" shotgun condenser, and this also will be implemented into the final plans. The drainage system does add to the overall expense of the flute with its SS valves, but a self made copper valve has been designed remembering the theory that liquid, especially distillate, always flows down. As the thread matures, so the bells and whistles can be applied. A thermometer will be installed into the system, although this has not been shown yet. OD has also included a set of laminair fins in the vapour chamber...


The main changes that OD and I have implemented lie within the internal plate tree.

Most of you will remember OD's 2 plate Stumpy build, well it was this method of plate that was used by OD and implemented to great success. OD and I will be building the system you see before you in these graphics and pdf's. It does call for a little more thought to be put into the plates, but as long as the plates circumference is honed to the ID of the 4" pipe, I see no great difficulty in building it. The tree can be slid into place at the correct height for the sight glasses and soldered into place using the sight port, before the sight glass housing is attached. For those wishing to remove the tree, the shotgun can be disconnected from the flute and the tree slid out. An easier method would be to implement a flushing system to the flute that would enable the flute to be rinsed at the turn of a cheap ball valve. The 2" bubble-caps can be made from 2" pipe and a silver soldered top plate, alternatively, you can just use 2" End-Feed end caps.

I am limited to the size of graphics that I can post in this thread for obvious reasons, therefore I intend to display graphics with the current rule in-place and also produce a pdf file to download and view at a higher res. I do not want to use any 3rd party sites to display the graphic as I want to keep all links and images true for the future membership and reference. The pdf's can be downloaded from my own mediafire account that I maintain regularly and viewed off-line.

Heres a PDF on the Internal Upper Bubble-cap and J-Type Trap...

Plate-Tree-and-Drainage.jpg

More information on this build will be posted here over the next few days, detailed plans, part lists and alternative methods for a certain part of the design will also be posted. Thanks must go to Larry, Rad, Kentucky Shinner, Spooky, Condensificator, prdbrissy and many many others who have stepped forward and shared their methods of construction with us. IMO, and going from the results of OD's prototype, the theory is correct. Larry's Humper design was a big factor in coming to a decision on the drainage system...
But it all started with Olddog having a passion to build a scaled down version of a commercial distillation apparatus and share it with HD... Thanks man...

The bridge was built, the road laid and the journey by others, taken...

I will update this thread daily until all OD's modifications are in place...

Let the brainstorming begin....