stilllearning's Glasser Build

[WTDist]

:scared-eek:
yea when i read 6" i thought if i had 6" pipe i would build a 6"

[scythe]

Do you have access to a wood lathe?
Turn up a small length of wood so its a snug fit in your pipe, ID of the pipe will be about 99mm.
Make it about 200mm of so long so its wider than the vice jaws.

[stilllearning]

too late for the 6" - she's all cut up :o
For some bizarre reason the local scrappy seems to come across 6" more often than 4", which is why I cut it up over the 4". Hopefully that decision doesn't come back to bite me in the ass later on.

I have my own wood lathe, so I'll knock up a wood filler for the pipe tomorrow before I cut it up. I was even thinking of making some plugs etc to hold pieces of pipe in there to make polishing a bit easier later on.

[scythe]

Yeah good idea.
If he gets 6" more often go back and get some quick smart.
The main reason for the plethora of 4" columns is availability, i know i would use 6" if it was there.

[stilllearning]

Well, a little bit of progress -

Got my 4" cut up today, when I squared up the end I did it without a wood filler just to see how it went, didn't seem to distort at all. Checked it with the calipers when I was done and was only out by about the same as before I cut it up. Went very gently on the saw though, pretty much just let the weight of the head do the work.

So now I've got 5x short sections which will become the unions between different parts, and one 125mm section for the RC.

IMG_0279.JPG

Had a fair amount of work cleaning up the inside of the pipe, being scrap it has had something in it at some stage which has dried in there leaving a crust along the length of the pipe, and it has also caused some pitting in the copper which I ground out with a flap wheel after I blasted the residue out of the pipe with a pressure washer. The scrappy wasn't sure where the copper had come from originally, so I figured better safe than sorry and got rid of it all. Wore a proper respirator too just to be sure I wasn't sucking down anything nasty.

IMG_0278.JPG

IMG_0276.JPG

IMG_0277.JPG

Took about 15 minutes to grind out one pipe, pretty happy with the result though. Wall thickness is down from 1.6mm to around 0.6/0.7mm on that side where I took out the pitting, but it doesn't seem to affect the strength of the tube. I'll attack the rest of the sections tomorrow.

[brewman]

I left the corroded / pitted parts in vinegar for a few days and all the crud disappeared. They're still heavily pitted but the only thing left was copper as far as I could tell.

[stilllearning]

Yeah I figured a good cleaning run would probably sort it out, but I figured I had nothing to loose by grinding it out at this stage. I didn't get a pic of the original residue in the pipe, but it looked pretty bad and made me a little trigger happy on the flap wheel.

[stilllearning]

Spent a couple more hours cutting/grinding/cleaning 4" today, and cut 5x 1/4" rings for my flanges.

Had a crack at hard soldering the rings up, but failed miserably - I'm using 5% 3mm solder stick from bunnings, bakers flux and a propane torch.
Cleaned ends of the ring with a file, wet & dry and added flux with a small brush before I started.

The solder stick melts fairly happily, but as soon as I touch it too the ring, it re-hardens. I spent ages heating the ring itself just at the point where the solder was sitting on the top, trying to draw the solder into the join, but no good. I don't think the propane torch is pumping enough heat into the copper, sound right? It's the big blue bernzomatic type torch from bunnings.

Should I be using MAPP or LPG or something else or am I doing something else wrong? That little ball of solder just sits there on top of the ring being a little asshole. :angry-banghead:
I've done tons of electronics soldering in my time but this is totally different it seems.

[Hardie355]

Need more heat in the ring and propane isn't gunna get you there.
Mapp will help but if you can get oxy/acet you'll be good as gold, mapp will work but try not to have too much touching it copper is a huge conductor. If you had the ring in the vice try putting the ring in needle nose pliers with the handle clamped in the vice less surface area less heat transfer but you will battle with propane. Get mapp or pinch an oxy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[stilllearning]

Righto, thanks Hardie. I might give the MAPP a go with the pliers trick and see how that goes. A buddy of mine has an oxy set but he's FIFO so I'll have to catch him when he's home next if MAPP fails.
Either way, need MORE POWER :twisted: :twisted:

[WTDist]

Need more heat in the ring and propane isn't gunna get you there.
Mapp will help but if you can get oxy/acet you'll be good as gold, mapp will work but try not to have too much touching it copper is a huge conductor. If you had the ring in the vice try putting the ring in needle nose pliers with the handle clamped in the vice less surface area less heat transfer but you will battle with propane. Get mapp or pinch an oxy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

i have a pinpoint propane torch and im thinking or using mapp on it next instead of propane, even though it says propane only. would i notice a difference in heat at all being pin point?

[Hardie355]

I had the pin point tip that come with my torch years ago and put it on once then threw it out! with copper and silver solder the work needs to be hot for the solder to flow nice, otherwise you get balls.

[woodduck]

Hardie's on to it with the pliers idea. I use a lpg torch and it only just does it. The other thing to try is put the ring over a gas ring burner if you have one, that should help warm things up :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[scythe]

You need to get the copper red hot or that little ball will just sit there and laugh at you.
You might be able to get it done with propane if you used a higher silver content solder, like >45% silver but that stuff is pricey.

I just use an oxy set.

[stilllearning]

Update:

Got out to my mate's dad's place today and got onto the oxy to do my flanges - holy shit what a difference :o
There's plenty of heat in there to get the job done, probably only had the joint under flame for less than 30-45 seconds total. Ended up just holding them straight in the vice and didn't have any heatsink problems.
We didn't end up using bakers flux either, mates dad had some powdered cigweld stuff, not sure of the name but seemed to work great.
So, just warmed up the silver rod, dipped in flux to get a bit on the end, heated the ring gently, rolled the flux around the joint with the rod, then heated away until a small bead of rod got drawn into the joint. Easy as.

Bashed them out on scrap pieces of 4" and 2" and ready to go. Got some time this arvo to fit a ring to one of my pipe sections and do some soft soldering too. Very happy with the results, just a little filing and sanding now to clean up. One thing I've got to ask, is there normally a EPDM gasket in between the copper flange and the stainless one? Should I knock one side of the "bead" off the gasket with a razor blade so it sits flush against the copper flange? Just seems like it doesn't quite sit right as it is with the bead on both sides.

IMG_0303reduced.jpg

IMG_0304reduced.jpg

IMG_0306reduced.jpg

[Adam007]

Should I knock one side of the "bead" off the gasket with a razor blade so it sits flush against the copper flange? Just seems like it doesn't quite sit right as it is with the bead on both sides.

Yeah mate, that's exactly what you should be doing :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[stilllearning]

Thanks Adam, seemed to make sense to cut one side of but wanted to make sure before I started slicing away.

[scythe]

You don't need to use the flux for 5% rods, i never do and it flows just fine once up the temp.
Good work tho, gives you a warm fuzzy feeling doesnt it.

[stilllearning]

Ahhh ok, thanks for the tip. Yep it sure does, feels like progress.

[stilllearning]

A little more progress today...

Been busy the last couple of weeks moving house.... Wife got her bigger house, and lucky me got a smaller shed. :angry-banghead: So where I used to have the run of the entire downstairs of our old house, now I have to fit all my stuff into a 3x3 garden shed. So no room to work in there on top of all the stored stuff, and way too hot in there anyway.
Moved the essentials to the verandah, so I can keep working at least. On the up side, picked up a small bench drill press using some christmas gift vouchers.

IMG_0312 reduced.jpg

Anyway, whinge over, back to work. Drilled 5mm pilot holes for risers/downcomers and for rods. Ran a pair of 5mm bolts through the first two holes to clamp everything together, then drilled the rest. Had no trouble drilling through 6 plates in one hit, just went steady steady and a squirt of WD-40 occasionally to keep things lubed. Had to stop after 5-6 holes to dunk the plate stack in water to cool down, and let the drill bit have a rest. Used a pair of locking C pliers to hold everything on the bed, since I don't have a mounted vice.
Going to have to use a step drill to enlarge the riser holes, couldn't find a 19mm drill bit with a 13mm shank (the largest size the drill chuck will take) but the step drill fits in fine.
Rod holes will be slotted 10mm, planning on finishing these up tomorrow afternoon.

IMG_0313reduced.jpg

IMG_0315reduced.jpg