StillSmart

Hi guys

Just had a look at the Still Dragon Europe site and it looks like their shop is now up and running, get some stilling porn on your xmas list

https://www.stilldragon.eu/en/special-offers

I'm hoping Santa brings me a 4" bubble tee to add to my torpedo

Thanks Anavrin.
Having just ordered some tri-clamps,on a slow boat from china,I was looking at YHB's work to make Easy Flanges.
I have more work than free time at the moment and https://www.stilldragon.eu/en/ferrules/ ... opper.html ,seem to me to be a way forward.
I will still have to solder them to the pipe,so will feel that I have done some work!
A shame that I don't have the time to learn to solder SS to copper as the SS versions are much less expensive.
On the site are also inexpensive sight glasses,so I will have no trouble finding enough goodies to warrant the 19.95 Euro postage.
Robert.

Those ferrules are great, I got some of the brass ones, as I like how the brass looks with the copper. The 2" work fantastic with our UK 54mm tube, the 3" will need a bit of working as they wont fit our 76mm pipe - but I think Myles said you can get them onto 54mm female connections.

fwiw im no good at soldering but managed soldering SS ferrules to my 54mm copper tube ok, I ebayed he materials shouted about on the hd.org site, harris stay brite liquid acid flux and the 8% silver bearing solder.

e-cigy refil bottles with a ss needle feedtube to apply the liquid flux durring the job, and be prepared to seal up a few needle ends in eror with solder (well i did ..)

pinch the tube slightly to deform the circular end as the ferrules are 52mm diameter, scour well both the stainless (diamond file works well) and the copper, drip on acid and brush to coat, i used a4 paper strips, push in the ferrule, and the deforming should hold it, the write up i followed suggested curling a ring of solder round the joint, 1/2 fell off when i did. and apply mapp gasheat to the SS flange face only, the ss is the biggest bit to heat and when upto temp the copper touching it will also be at temp


if 1/2 the solder ring falls off, just add more flux and solder welding gloves are a must...

Thanks for sharing that,I will attempt weighing up the cost of copper versus SS ,which would need new flux,solder and Mapp gas and torch,for what may be a one-off use.
Robert.

If the copper is inside the stainless it will probably be okay, if the stainless is inside the copper, the joint will probably fail at some point due to the very different thermal expansion coefficients that stainless and copper have.

Haven't experience of this personally, just what I've heard from some folks who have built tons more stuff than I have.

@Anavrin, thanks for sharing the news. We are still hard at work on our site, and some products are still missing from the catalog, but we are progressing constantly.

@Easydrinker, good news, Robert, we were just able to bring down shipping costs by 10 EUR excl. VAT (= 12 EUR incl. VAT) each parcel size and eliminate the minimum order amount.

Hello SDeurope and welcome

I recently purchased a 2" -4" torpedo from you just a week before your shop opened, I must say I'm very impressed with it and I would like to add to it by adding some 4" bubble tees, I see you make a standard size 4" tee with a 3" sight glass and an extra short version with a 2" sight glass, my question is does the short one give the same performance as the full size one?

I want to add more plates but keep the height to a minimum.

@Anavrin, there should not be any difference in performance, the regular tee is 154 mm high, the extra short version 110 mm (for reference, the height of our Crystal Dragon glass sections is 100 mm), and they can take the same bubble plate. Our extra short tee or Crystal Dragon glass column are great ways to get the most out of a column if ceiling height is an issue.

Hi SDE
welcome to the forum I think there will be some interesting posts in the coming months
I wonder if you could give me some info and answers on your kit

Looking at a column such as the dash 4" pro with 3 bubble plates using the pro caps

What would be your recommendation be for size/ KW of heating element ?

What sort of output per hour and ABV could you expect

Would the product emerging be clean enough to use straight from a wash charge (of say 14-16%ABV) or would a stripping run still be required plus the spirit run ?

And what sort of coolest water flow if water is about 15 degrees Celsius ?

Anyone with any experience of this kit please chip in !

@Admiral Toad, let me see:

- The size/power of the heating element mostly depends on the used boiler. With our 50L Milk Can and one 5500W element it should be no problem to drive a column up to 8 plates quite hard. The real power is just needed for for heat up, during operation you would reduce power enough to keep it going at a reasonable take off speed (like reducing from 5500W to let's say 3000W, that's where your DIY Controller Kit comes into play).

- Output per hour is quite individual with a reflux column, because the slower you take off the more water you give the dephlegmator and the higher the ABV. A typical number could be 5 L/h with a 10% boiler charge at ~90% ABV with 4 plates and regular (mini) bubble caps (at least 20% more with ProCaps), but such results vary a lot depending on user.

- Here in Austria one is only allowed to have up to 3 plates, so yes, you can go from wash/mash directly to end product, which is the typical use of a reflux column, but of course that depends on the desired product (as known there are worlds between let's say distilling whisky and vodka).

- Water flow is another point of large variations because it depends on intake water temp, desired product and take off speed. I wish we had more user feedback, because if I tell that one uses 12 L/h at warm ambient temps it's like telling a house number.

Please be aware that due to legal reasons we can not use our equipment ourselves here at our office/warehouse location in Austria, so we may not be the best source of information concerning usage. For that we have our StillDragon Community Forum with actual users around the world willing to provide all the desired info. It really is a very friendly place and I'd like to encourage everyone interested in StillDragon equipment to have a look and sign up there.

thanks for the link what a site it all looks so cool,couldnt find a complete still on there so i got abit puzzled but hay im new to this great site tho guys