Help! Newbie Electric Boil Kettle Mistake

[mjpbordsno]

Well, this is a story of getting excited to drill holes and buying equipment without going over the details. I'm setting up a new electric boil kettle (using weldless kit similar to high gravity's) and to drill my 1-1/4 inch hole in the side of the kettle I purchased a step drill bit and my inner cheap self had me purchase Harbor Freight's knockout punch set. Well I measured drilled and punched a hole in the kettle using what i figured was the 1-1/4 knockout punch but as I've now read on most of these threads, this size is actually something like 1.37 in. in size as it's meant for conduit. Well, as you can guess I go to install the silicone o-ring inside and I have just enough gap between the kettle hole and the Oring that, when compressed, the O-ring collapses into this hole just enough and the kettle leaks a bit.

So do I have any easy solutions, would a thicker o ring potentially fix my issue? Should I can this kettle and just buy a new one, or should I try and buy some larger plug and do my best to plug this one and drill again.

Any help is appreciated, feeling stupid enough already.

 

[ChuckO]

I would revise my thinking about how to mount the heating element. Check out https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/etc4s.htm for Bobby's kettle element mounting. It uses a hole between 1 3/8 and 1 5/8 inches. You would silver solder the flange to your kettle and go from there. Would be cheaper than buying a new kettle.

 

[mjpbordsno]

Thanks ChuckO,

This would have been a great solution, however a couple things became apparent after trying to fix the problem. First I purchased some silicone washers from McMaster&Carr to try and make up for the gap, I had to hand cut the 1" ID of the washer a bit larger but I figured this might work as the gap was fairly small. No dice, still leaking quite viciously. Finally I realized my mistake, I had accounted for the curve at the bottom of the kettle, but only enough for the element to fit in flat, the actual curve at the bottom was not allowing the larger interior nut to compress the silicone on the bottom of the kettle. This would also make trying to silver that larger flange pretty dificult. So I game up with a solution with these washers I had to plug the hole, and so far so good. I used two stainless 1/2in ID 2in OD washers and a 1/2 stainless hex bolt to seal the hole up. The size of the hole allowed me to position the washers high enough to seal the hole and not get caught on the bottom curve. Live and learn I guess, we'll see how it holds up, I may be in the market for a new kettle in the future. Here are some pics (my apologies for the quality)

 

[mjpbordsno]

for the record the water on the outside of the plug is from my wet fingers

 

[dmcman73]

I second ChuckO's suggestion. The hole is large enough to silver solder a fitting in or bring it to a welder to have a fitting TIG welded in. That would be the best way and will look finished and leak proof.