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Your Vote Counts

You, the forum members, suggestions and comments are always appreciated.
Now you can voice the direction that SD takes with the reducers.
@RedDoorDistillery needed a reduced height - but not an end cap - reducer and it opened up some possibilities for us.
The new bowl shaped reducers are kinda cool looking and they are not as tall as the regular, classic conical reducers. They weigh a little less, take a little longer to make and cost the same.

Please chime in and cast your vote for Bowl or Conical. Our inventory is getting a bit bloated and we need to cull some items and these are a direct duplicate as far as functionality.

I vote Bowl because they are space saving and look classier, at least to me, but I'll abide by the consensus of the masses.

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Comments

  • edited July 2013

    Wow, that's a tough one. I think it's about looks, conical = modern vs. bowl = classical.

    Nevertheless if the bowl does not have any downside in vapor movement, the difference in height is partly dramatical when looking at that picture.

    I vote Bowl.

    P.S. I know, we need a voting plugin here in our forum, which I already wanted to implement some time ago, but unfortunately the existing plugin is not working properly with the newer version of our forum software. I hope voting by comments will do for now.

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  • 2 Bowl
    0 Conical

    Too early to tell and I fear that injecting my personal preference may have influenced the vote. I hope not because the future SD lineup of reducers is now in the hands of the forum users and it would be best if they were not swayed by my personal bias.

    Adequate stocks of both have been sent to USA recently so the vote here and the vote by actual sales will determine which items are culled from the lineup. The fly in the ointment is the website lists the conical reducers when buying a Dash and it's a bit complicated to change that. Just saying that entropy favors the conical.

  • I prefer the look of the conical. That said, if you had 2 8" bowls together, it would make an interesting onion...

  • Yes it would make a nice onion but it can't make a torpedo.

  • Another vote for the bowl.

  • Not interested in looks so much as function. (sort of same way I pick my girlfriends). Anyway, aside from the looks, and obvious physical advantage of having shorter height, my question would be does it impact function in any way? I've always thought tapers over length worked better in regards to managing vapor flow smoothly. But, I'm new to this design, so perhaps it would not have any impact. Would it be different for a modular potstill? etc. Those would be more along the lines of my questioning. (function)

  • edited July 2013

    Just in regards to looks alone....I prefer the original (tapered). I also like the idea in regards to modularity to have the option of all 3 (flat, medium, long). Then, see which one sells more/most. But, If you "have" to cut something, and I had my druthers...I'd loose the flat one, and keep these two.

  • edited July 2013

    I do like the bowl best for cosmetic reasons and the savings in height seems like an obvious benefit. The Torpedo has not gone away however. Lloyd what do the clearances look like with a Torpedo top mounted to bowl? Does it look too wonky?

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  • I'll throw a spanner in and say i prefer the tapered reducers. I just imagine them functioning slightly better then the bowls and a whole lot better than the shorts. That's why i've never stocked much of the shorts.

    The bowls really look the business in an 8 x 4, but the 2 x 3/4 looks pretty ordinary.

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  • @punkin said:

    The bowls really look the business in an 8 x 4, but the 2 x 3/4 looks pretty ordinary.

    Agree'd

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

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  • That is a cool solution LoO

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Looks familiar :))

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Another Fully Subsidized Development

    Put that in ya pipe and smoke it!!!

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  • Bowl! Kind of reminds me of the bubble ball halfs :)>-

    It is what you make it!

  • @punkin makes a clever observation, the larger size reducers look better in bowl and the smaller size look "normal" in conical.
    @usge, I agree that conical is probably more functional for a smooth vapor flow.
    @Smaug, I don't believe that a bowl torpedo is possible but I'll ask the factory to try. They are very used to my weird requests now.
    @Law_Of_Ohms =))

  • image

    @bentstick said: Bowl! Kind of reminds me of the bubble ball halfs :)>-

    4x2 reducers, really shows the reduced height but getting a sight glass pull may be asking too much of the factory. I'll ask and report back.

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  • I think 4" and down should be concentric and anything bigger the bowl looks good

  • I vote Conical, the bowls look weird and I don't like them, the bowls will look even weirder on one of the round boilers. But where the bowls do look really good is on the element socket mock up, now that looks cool.

  • Bowl! Classical appearance and more turbulence induced in the vapour flow. Turbulence is good right?!?

  • Bowl for the 4" and up, conical for 4" and down. (ONLY 4" available in both). - Well, that's what floats MY boat.

  • This is the best user input that I've ever had.
    Ever.
    The larger sizes of conical like 6 and 8" look a little bad to me after seeing the bowl shape reducers while the smaller bowl shape reducers do seem to look "not quite right".

    I like my 4x2 bowl shape reducer on my personal rig. To me it just looks right.

    This will take months to settle out as we weigh the sales and also your votes here but so far you guys have given valuable insight to help hone the SD product line.

  • I think stinger has it just right...... 4" is the only duplicate 6" up bowl... 4" down conical and the flat ones stay as well i think...

  • Vapor will travel better in the conical.. I am getting an 8 inch dash 2 and would like to have all conical fittings.

  • my vote for conical. but bowl (as an option) in 3/4" to 2", 2" to 4", 4" to 6", 4" to 8in"

    but accept that it might not be practical or possible to stock the extra parts.

  • edited July 2013

    I like the idea of 4" in both, less than 4" conical and above 4" dish — although I still have reservations about vapor flow in other than tapered conical. I wanted to add one more comment....seems to me anything over 4" probably gonna need some way to flush it without having to disassemble it. It's one thing to take apart a 4" so you can flush through it with a hose. Another to take down a 6 or 8" column. It would seem to me these reducers would be one place that this could be accomplished by making some sort of cleaning port. Either that or somekind of additional coupling/part that goes between the column and product condenser that would allow hose attachment to flush it both ways (ie., down the column as well as down the product condenser). That could be used on any system by clamping it inline. Just thinking out loud.

    My thinking here is that I'm just imagining that most of those over 4" columns are going to be used in a commercial setting for batch production. In that environment....it would be an obvious benefit to not have to disassemble the unit to clean it between runs.

  • We do have several solutions for that now Usge. Lloyd has posted pics of the 180 bend solution but can't recall which thread it's on.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • I would vote for the bowled design. Particularly for the 8-4".

    Hey Larry, you have any of those in stock at the moment? I might want to add one, and maybe another item or two, to what I have left on that last order.

    I'll note that for an actual sanitary use (brewing, etc), the tapered are probably going to be easier to CIP. Not that it is much of an issue for the question at hand, but SD prices on a lot of these fittings are so good that it might be worth considering how much of non-distilling customer base is buying.

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