The missus went to bunnings the other day and collected nearly all the other stuff I needed. the guy ended up selling her the wrong flux paste which I didn't realise until after I attempted to use it and the solder just wouldn't stick and I was wondering wtf I was doing wrong (I have and can solder but never done it on anything this big). I ended up fucking up my easy flange slightly as I had to hit the ring off again and then it didn't seem to want to sit flat with the flange and didn't realise until after I had soldered it.
Alright guys so today I decided I should really start getting onto building this thing or it will never happen.
I ordered a few things for the keg boiler from online a few weeks ago and also ended up getting the 4" 4 plate bubbler... Hopefully they are half decent. I cant see me getting the time to build one and have it ready before I run outta grog.
this is what I purchased
Here's all the copper goodness
figured i'd make a start on the RC and see how these easy flanges work.
I scribed a mark 6mm in from the edge and then used a shifter to gently flare the edge over enough to start hitting it with the hammer. I made the easy flanges (ended up 1 short as my 1/4" copper was a little bit short. I do have some more but think I will still end up not having enough.
once I cut my rings I bent them to line up and tidied up the ends by squeezing them lightly over the 1mm grinder blade to debur them and so they matched each other perfectly. it worked a treat. then gapped it at about half a mil for the hard solder to get a bit of bite on the inside of the pipe too. it was a near perfect fit on the pipe and didnt crack once flattened.
after flattening and soldering it (once i used the right flux) I ended up using some bakers soldering fluid and it flowed in a treat. Trimed it to length and admired my handy work. The leftover of this piece was either 570 or 670mm so that will turn into my packed section but from what i have read I think i will need to make another 2 plates for neutrals. How many scrubbler do you fit into the 4" pipe per 100mm or a rough guide so I know how many to buy. I got some of those Mr Clean Tuffmates Pot And Pan Scrubs from bunnings but its gonna add up looking at how flat I can push them in. Is there a cheaper/better way?
Im lacking an anvil, a decent vise and even a decent bench so struggling on a few of the steps. to get the edge on a bit of a taper I chucked a sheet of steel on my workbench and had the piece sitting right at the edge. This allowed my hammer to hang over the edge of the bench when striking the flange and give me the taper I was looking for. The setup below was to not burn my bench while soldering (an old laminate bench top from a kitchen).
Even though I was thinking of taking pictures along the way I literally forgot half of them. :roll:
My plans have also changed mainly on the boiler setup.
Went with a 2400w and 3600w element.
The keg is now back upright and will put a 4" sight glass at the top with a 6" flange for the column and will go 6 to 4" I figured if I ever went to a 6" column because I have gone crazy then I can and if I need to increase my boiler capacity I will cut the keg in half and get a piece of stainless rolled up to fit the gap that would probably lift the whole setup 600mm or so. I have seen a few 118L kegs done like that.
under the keg im going to run a drain pipe out the bottom/side hopefully making it able to fully drain. I will need 5 or so meters of tube to dispose of the leftovers and a place to dump it without burning the grass :))
I'm also thinking of adding/having it capable of pre-heating on gas as well to save power/decrease my wait times even more. Hence my redesign and the fact I couldn't buy the fittings I was looking for to reuse the keg flange if it was upside down.
All in all I have a start and should be able to get most of what I need done before the parts for my keg boiler rock up.
Still got a few tri clamps to get, a bit more 1/4" pipe and some material for the keg legs but other than that I think i'm pretty sorted.
Anyone got any tips on cleaning the copper up easily? the inside of the 4" pipe I have has this scum that takes a lot of elbow grease to get it off im using a green scourer and ended up spraying a bit of foreshots in the mix and that helped but still took a bit of cleaning up. The outside was a little easier but still more effort than I had hoped :laughing-rolling: