The Red Door Distillery and the tale of the 8" Crystal Dragon.....

RedDoorDistillery

For the last plate things are a little different.

You don't need a Cup on the top plate as there will be no downcommer above it to accept it. In this case you just take 1 of the small Allen head bolts and put it in the hole and tighten the nut on the back.

This plate also again requires a cut down gasket. But this time the legs for the glass are on the bottom and the top of the gasket is flat to sit in the flange recess.

RedDoorDistillery

Now it is time for the rods to hold it all together.

Each Rod get 4 nuts. 2 on each end. Place 1 nut on each end and thread them all the way down. Set each rod in the bottom flange and then add a nut to the bottom of each rod below the flange.

Once you have all 8 rods in place and you have used 3 nuts per rod then you place the top flange on the column and carefully work each rod thru the holes in the top flange.

Once all 8 rods are thru the top flange check the seating of the flange on the top plate and gasket to make sure everything is seated and aligned.

Add the top 8 nuts on the top side of the flange.

Adjust the rods so the same amount of threads are above the top flange and below the bottom flange. Leave the lock nuts that are on the inside of the flanges very loose at this step.

Once the rods are even. Thread down the inner nuts on the bottom and use 2 wrenches to tighten the nuts on the lower flange. This locks them in tight on the bottom flange.

On the top flange tighten the nuts on top of the flange in a crisscross pattern. They really don't need to be all that tight just enough to hold all the glass and flanges together. I tried to use a torque wrench to see what I set them to and it was less than 1 foot pound as the torque wrench never clicked at the lowest setting.

Once you are satisfied with the overall tightness run the inner nut up and tighten the upper and lower nuts on the flange to lock them in just like you did the bottom flange nuts.

You can see in the final picture that I have welded in a thermowell into the top flange. The flanges DO NOT come with the thermowell.

RedDoorDistillery

Well here it is. Totally assembled.

I have the 8" Dephlagmenter on top and the new 8x4 bowl reduced that StillDragon will begin offering shortly. This reducer was built for me to same 100mm in height as I was running out of ceiling height. We loved the look of it over the standard conical reducers so Lloyd is adding them to the StillDragon product line in 8x4 and other sizes.

Last 2 pictures are of "ME" the very happy 1st owner of a 8" Crystal Dragon from StillDragon.com

Thanks to Lloyd and Law of Ohms for all the work on getting this from concept to delivered....

RedDoorDistillery

I am 6' 4" so with the top elbow it is just as tall as I am. So 193cm tall. This column has 10 glass sections and 11 plates. I would guess the column weighs about 100 lbs (45.5kg)with the Dephlagmenter and the 8x4 reducer. I will get an exact weight when I take it back to the Distillery where I have a scale.

Lloyd

:D Looking good @RedDoorDistillery

jonno

Looks fantastic mate

Moonshine

Indeed, just beautiful!

cooperville

Wow this is an awesome piece of SD art Congrats rdd

Lloyd

Its a lot of big plates in a small clear package. RDD pushed me every step of the way to get this completed, thanks to him it's now available to others. ^:)^

harley

Hey,

It looks good, I missing a roof over your measuring point on the top plate under reflux condenser, for which it is now so you will have reflux as droplets on the tube from top and the steam that heats the tube from below, which would you measure! Be watchful when you lower trough level by lowering the return pipe into the cup so you do not get too small distance between the return pipe and the bottom of the cup so it becomes a restrictor down there .... The pattern is an almost exact copy of my designs in my 8 "copper columns and where I have about 8% hole surface of the active wet surface with 1.5 mm hole in 4mm pattern and it will be interesting to see what this glass column produces. I personally think that you can get up to 20 liters with a minimum reflux needed for the plates to function optimally. Now I have developed this one step further and are up about 10% of the same pattern and am using almost the entire plate, but this is not proven yet practical.

I look forward to the real numbers when you're going with this beautiful piece.

Cheers from a hot Sweden.

Lloyd

Harley, we relied heavily on your recommendations when developing this 8" perf plate. If we get it wrong I'm coming to Sweden to beat you =))

RedDoorDistillery

@harley These plates at just a hair shy of 10% about (9.89%) using 1.5mm holes. But I have a massive amount of power 44,000 watts available to me. So the trick will be how much power and upward vapor speed will it take to keep these plates wet.

Smaug

Biting my nails waiting for the complete and comprehensive video production. :-\"

punkin

A bloody work of art and all involved should take a bow. This is going to translate very well into hobby sizes and will be featured in a lot of small to medium distilleries.

Imagine doing the tour when this unit is operating, it'll be one of the most photographed parts of your distillery for sure.

Well done Lloyd, and well done Red Door. Thanks again for your contributions Harley. Wish i could've been more help, but this sort of stuff is beyond me.

harley

Yeas Punkin, you are absolutely right, and the price of this should be very competative too so this will most likely be the Sd, s next major sales success. especially to those who have their establishments visible to visitors then teach this to be a real attraction and become highly prized by both users and visitors.

Cheers

emptyglass

Well done red door, almost good enough to make a bit of wee come out :D Cant wait to hear how it performs.

harley

@Lloyd said: Harley, we relied heavily on your recommendations when developing this 8" perf plate. If we get it wrong I'm coming to Sweden to beat you =))

Hi Lloyd Yes you have absolut right that this with 1,5mm hole is my idea and allso in 4mm pattern for a 8” plate, but a tips you allso that this way to build an glasscolumn with glass sections and 8pc ss treaded long bolts is an easy and cheap way to doing it, but in my yeas it suit best for Sieve plates, and if you have bubbelcaps on the plate then it is difficold to empty them , so this reguards a different and a little Thicker plate-or a 10-12mm “ring” so you can have a side drain, typ 6- 10mm pipe and a crane after it also. But this it is note impossible to fix this also…. 8” is for commersial use so this is important, you must be abel to clean and empty all plate after you are finish, for hobby this issnt so important…. Im note worry that this shall work to 100%, if all returncups-vaporlock is 100% sealed in bottom where the screw is going thro them and the pipe issnt to close to the bottom of cup….

Something that am sitting and thinking of is hove many liter per hour that you shall “earn” if you have the returncup – waporlock in the air so you get more wet active plate to use for upper going stem… I haven’t calculate on this 8” sieve plate solution that this is, and a don’t now all exact dimension and number of 1,5mm hole in this plate, but am personally don’t afraid to go all the way up to 10% and also over it…. with 1,5mm hole IF a have power for it! and 44 000watt can take care of 2pc “twins” of this glass column and 10%...

But when you lift up the returncup in the air and place 1,5mm hole there insted in 4mm pattern, then you must recalculate the wet plate area-column diameter so this shall note make so big different in the total hole %....but maybe 10-15% more liter per hour…

Yes a now am little crasy but a must always take it all to the max….. and am relly looking forewards to se what this lovley peace shall perfome and howe "wide" the destillations band is... ;-)

Cheers

emptyglass

Well Harley, I hope it works too, other wise Lloyd is going to be after your sweedish ass! :))

harley

Hi EG, Hope that everyting is okey with you in yours country, here in Sweden it,s warm , relly good sommer so far. Something that am also sitting an thinking of is if you have a relly low licuidlevel on the plate typ 6-8mm ( this ss plate is 100% straight-in level), then a think that this plate can take care of more power without infect the plate over…. This is something that a shall test in my SD 8” ss modular column with my sieve plates later but a have only 4pc 5500watts element to 200 liter of mesh , note 44 000watt to 1000liter that Rd have, that’s heavy relly heavy ;-) so he can have relly Big hole if he want and many of them…. Am relly intressted in how little power ha can drive this with.... becouse almoust everything is working with 100% power.... ;-)

Cheers

RedDoorDistillery

Because I have set the DC pipes and fluid height at 13mm above the plate that means I have about 10mm of gap below the bottom of the DC pipe and the bottom of the cup. If I were to reduce the DC overflow height to the lowest setting f about 6mm then I would only have 4mm of gap between the bottom of the DC pipe and the cup.

RedDoorDistillery

The only reason I have 44,000watts of power in my still was to reduce the heat up time. Even with 44,000w it still takes 3 hrs to go from 20C to 85C with my 260gallon (984L) Charge size. Originally I had only planned for 22,000w but then I did the math of the warm up time and came out at around 5 hours. So I doubled the power available.

harley

Hi RD, You have an interesting time in front of you, with many test with different power and reflux and also different licuid heights on the plate but after a time am 100% sure that you have found what settings is best for you and yours way to drive yours 8” column. Im relly looking forewards to follow you and this 8” column and to se what settings you end up with. Hope you have it good in yours country, and have time to “be free” now when it is high summer.

Yes, 1000liter is a relly Big volym to heat up, but you have all the power and a lot of more than you need to drive 2pc of this 8" colum if you want in the future... ;-) Cheers

LunaBrille

That dragon is a sexy beast. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Smaug

@LunaBrille said: That dragon is a sexy beast. Beautiful, just beautiful.

It's like your going to be a peeping Tom RDD! :):)

RedDoorDistillery

Well if all goes as planned I will be running the 11 perforated plate 8" Crystal Dragon on Sunday this week. First run will be with 260 gallons of 5% Wheat wash that I have sitting ready to go. We will see what the initial performance is like. I plan to take some pictures as well as video to share from the inaugural run.

harley

Im waitning ;-)

Cheers

Geezaboy

Can't wait to see it in action. What a beauty. ;)

RedDoorDistillery

So we set her up and put here thru a test run today. Charged the boiler with 225 gallons of wash @ 5%. Plates loaded up and let it reflux for 60 mins started pulling off heads. Best I was able to pull was 160Proof from the 5% wash @ about 10L an hour. Had a a lot of weeping issues until I got the power up there.

Ended up with a small amount of reflux on the Dephlag and running 22,000 Watts (4 Elements 5,500watts each) to drive it. Pulled 160proof all the way thru. Still need to learn more about balancing everything. But overall not bad for a 1st run.

It was only a 5% wash so I was not expecting peak output and proof. Cant wait to see what it does when charged with a 50% wash....

RedDoorDistillery

Quick video of the 1st run of the 8" Crystal Dragon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Ir6wCjVcE

Bold

Really nice RDD! Enjoying all the details and tidbits. Keep them coming !!