Is a "bulkhead connector" necessary for weldless?

[mook32]

Hi, I have been lurking for a while and am getting ready to build a keggle brewing setup and hoping for some help.

One thing that has befuddled me is the "weldless bulkhead".

I understand how it works, but I am confused as to why it is needed in some circumstances.

For example, building a keggle, installing a valve and a pick-up tube. The valve has a female 1/2" NPT fitting and the pick-up has a male 1/" NPT fitting.
In this situation, is the 1/2" NPT nipple and connector (of the weldless bulkhead) necessary? If so, why?

Sorry if this is an obvious question!
Thanks in advance!

Cheers

 

[BigFloppy]

no, you'll need a washer or 2 and probably a pair of o-rings to actually seal against the bulkhead, you might also need a 1/2" nut to tighten the o-rings against the bulkhead

 

[day_trippr]

Lay the parts out and take a picture, and someone will tell you if it'll work.
There are lots of ways to connect things through a kettle wall.
Some of them work very well indeed, some are a perpetual pita...

Cheers!

 

[mook32]

Thanks! That is what I thought, but wanted to make sure.
Great idea trippr! I will give it a shot!

Cheers

 

[Bobby_M]

The easiest way to explain is that a bulkhead is a fitting that makes a liquid tight passage through the wall of a tank. There are a lot of hobo versions of this out there and they work to some degree, sometimes with a lot of reassembly and thread seal tape.

Here's what we call a thread-in diptube assembly for when you already have female threads on the inside. Notice that there is no flat and wide surface on the fitting to sandwich a gasket against the wall.

Since I don't have a great picture of the "True Bulkhead" version of that assembly, here's a similar one:

The fitting itself has a huge hex machined in and there's a gasket groove in it that you can't easily see in the pic above, but here's a closeup:

 

[day_trippr]

Bobby has lots of cool pictures of his bulkheads on his site, and I've use quite a few of these in particular

Mounted through a properly cut hole, they not only don't leak, they don't spin.
One might be surprised to realize that's not a lock with other designs...

Cheers!