Making your own copper packing

[Bushman]

I am putting together a tutorial for making your own copper packing, it is the method I used on my own 4" column but this tutorial is set up for a 2" column. On my 2" column I bought two 1 lbs packs to fill my still at MileHi at a cost of $11.89 plus tax a pound. First I would like to give credit where credit is due as the idea came from Mash Rookie and he had the wire tested to make sure it was 100 copper. Along the way I will try to save you from some of the pitfalls I ran into until figuring out the best way I could to unwind the wire.

TUTORIAL
Total cost with tax $11.41 but if you bought cable at scrap yard it would be a lot less
Material needed:
one 3 ft length of welding cable, 2/0 600V
vise grips
drill motor
X-acto knife

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1. Strip outer casing to separate wire

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I ended up with 19 strands of wire that needs to be separated into each strand

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2. At this point it's important to follow the directions to avoid the tangling I got when I first attempted this. Take each strand one at a time and on one end pinch all the wire (make sure you get all the wire pinched) and put the other end in a drill motor. Set the motor for reverse, stand on the vise grips pulling the wire tight so it doesn't twist on itself and start to unwind. If it starts to wind back up then put it back in forward.

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When taking it out you need to be careful so that it doesn't snarl. What made it easier for me is to leave it in the vise grips and while still keeping it straight work my way down the wire strand separating it even more.

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3. Do this to each strand and combine the strands working them together. Depending on the length of your column you can stagger the strands back and forth. In this tutorial the packing is 49" long out of a 3' cable.

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4. I gave mine an acid bath to rough it up as I believe it retains the liquid better.

Another advantage is the material is thicker wire which I think also adds to the density needed during reflux.