Looking for some advice on how to finish my black iron tower

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b-boy

b-boy

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I've been working on a 4-tap black iron tower. It's made with 3" pipe and has a 2" PVC pipe running through it. I've got the thing built and insulated with foam, but I can't finish it.

I can't figure out how to attach the beer lines to the shank, and then attach to bushing to the tower. The bushing is threaded, so In order to attach the bushing I have to spin it on. That requires the beer line to be able to spin as well.

Originally I assumed that once I ran the beer line, I'd be able to attach the tubing to the faucet and spin the bushing. I thought the tubing would be able to spin freely inside the tower. This isn't the case. The tubing is pretty sticky and will not spin inside the tower.

Anyone know if the tubing will spin on the barb once I add a worm clamp to it? Can I add a little keg lube to the barb to make it easier to spin inside the tube?
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I've thought of possibly using quick connects that are able to spin once engaged. I'd connect the lines, push them into the tower, and spin on the bushing. Hopefully the quick connects would spin freely.

So... how the hell do I attach this thing?

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b-boy said:
I've been working on a 4-tap black iron tower. It's made with 3" pipe and has a 2" PVC pipe running through it. I've got the thing built and insulated with foam, but I can't finish it.

I can't figure out how to attach the beer lines to the shank, and then attach to bushing to the tower. The bushing is threaded, so In order to attach the bushing I have to spin it on. That requires the beer line to be able to spin as well.

Originally I assumed that once I ran the beer line, I'd be able to attach the tubing to the faucet and spin the bushing. I thought the tubing would be able to spin freely inside the tower. This isn't the case. The tubing is pretty sticky and will not spin inside the tower.

Anyone know if the tubing will spin on the barb once I add a worm clamp to it? Can I add a little keg lube to the barb to make it easier to spin inside the tube?
​
I've thought of possibly using quick connects that are able to spin once engaged. I'd connect the lines, push them into the tower, and spin on the bushing. Hopefully the quick connects would spin freely.

Click to expand...

Nice tower! This looks like a tough one. I don't think quick connects will work because you still need something to spin and I don't think you have enough room. Have you tried this, I don't know if it will work. Take the nut off the shank and slip on beer line and barely start it on the shank and start your black pipe at the same time and see if that works, you may have to adjust the beer nut a few times to determine the tightness of the beer nut.
 
I can go back a little farther. There's a lot of foam in there that can be trimmed back as needed. I can also drill a bigger hole into the PVC running through the pipe. Still I think QDs would be very tight in any case. The ones I looked at are over 3" long. I think that's too long.

I need at least 3 full turns to tighten down the bushings to the point that they won't move when you touch them. The beer nut trick might work. My only concern would be it not being tight enough and causing a leak. This thing is air tight, so I might not detect a leak for for a while.

Worst case I might have to pull out the beer line, grease it up, and see if I can get it to spin. It was a real pain running the lines, so that's my last resort.

If I had stopped at 3 taps, this would have been a lot easier. I'll only ever use 3 taps at a time, but I wanted a nitro tap to be available. The 4th tap is what's causing all the problems. My kegerator is designed for 3 kegs. The top access point to the kegerator only accepts a 1-inch PVC pipe. My 2" PVC inside the tower gets reduced to 1" on the way out. That's where everything is bunching up.
 
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Those couplers might work, or they might have enough friction to cause the tubing to twist when you try to thread the 3” bungs into the tees.

An alternative, which might not cost much more than the couplers, would be to have the threads on the 3" bungs machined down until the bungs will slip into the tees. Then, drill and tap a small hole through opposing sides of the shoulder of the tee and secure the bungs with set screws.
 
grampamark said:
Those couplers might work, or they might have enough friction to cause the tubing to twist when you try to thread the 3” bungs into the tees.

An alternative, which might not cost much more than the couplers, would be to have the threads on the 3" bungs machined down until the bungs will slip into the tees. Then, drill and tap a small hole through opposing sides of the shoulder of the tee and secure the bungs with set screws.
Click to expand...

Hmm...I'll have to think about that one.
 
Set screw approach is a good one. My only suggestion is to drill a small matching dimple in the cap you're trying to secure so the set screw has something to positively engage with. It will go a long way towards making it more secure. Use 3 set screws to make sure it's fully secured and won't wiggle around.

I've used set screws on a black iron setup before, and it was just two set screws onto the flat sides of the pipe. The joint loosened up fairly easily through use. Granted I had more of a lever arm on my setup than you will, but still, better not to have to go back and modify later.

EDIT:
only other idea I would have would require pulling the lines out. open that cap on the end of the arm and feed the lines from there to the tap. secure onto the tap and then thread the cap into the pipe. While tightening you can twist the tube with the tap to take the kinks out. Then use a snake to pull the tap lines down through the tower into the kegorator. More of a pain to do, but possible.
 
Here's my $0.02...

Add a second shank nut to the outside, That way you can thread the plug in letting the shank spin freely with the hose on the tailpiece. Once in place you can tighten the outside shank nut to bring it home. Here is a highly technical drawing of what I'm talking about.
Untitled.png
 
FloppyKnockers said:
Here's my $0.02...

Add a second shank nut to the outside, That way you can thread the plug in letting the shank spin freely with the hose on the tailpiece. Once in place you can tighten the outside shank nut to bring it home. Here is a highly technical drawing of what I'm talking about.View attachment 559116
Click to expand...

This one might be a winner. I'll have to buy new shanks, but I think it might work. I never thought about that as an option.
 
cegan09 said:
only other idea I would have would require pulling the lines out. open that cap on the end of the arm and feed the lines from there to the tap. secure onto the tap and then thread the cap into the pipe. While tightening you can twist the tube with the tap to take the kinks out. Then use a snake to pull the tap lines down through the tower into the kegorator. More of a pain to do, but possible.
Click to expand...

This won't work because I capped off the PVC pipe that runs through the black iron pipe. There's no way to get in there. I built it to be as airtight as possible.
 
b-boy said:
This one might be a winner. I'll have to buy new shanks, but I think it might work. I never thought about that as an option.
Click to expand...
I was thinking you might need new shanks as well for this to work. However, If you have the means, you could counter-bore the inside of the plug the depth of a shank nut to give you the room.
 
I already had to epoxy a washer onto the bushing. The bushing is a little too big for the tap to sit properly. I think the second nut may be able to take the place of the washer. This might kill two birds with one stone.

It might not look as pretty, but as long as beer pours out of it, I'm happy.
 
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I ordered new shanks. I went with the same length, but got shanks with the nipple welded on. Not having to worry about the coupler nut should give me more than enough room for the second shank nut.

Basically, this is the same setup as the pass-thru shank on my jockey box.

This will take a little tinkering, but I think it will work.
 
So I just finished a build where I used copper pipe inside 2" pipe. Ran into the exact same problem.

Sorry to say the only thing I could come up with was to completely disassemble the tower and rebuild it working backwards. Wish I had pics to illustrate better, but:
  1. Attach faucet to bushing
  2. Attach 15' beer line to shank
  3. Attach bushing to first piece of pipe (outside one in your case, it was the inside ones for me)
  4. This allowed beer line freedom to rotate and untangle
  5. Copper pipe
  6. Insulation
  7. Repeat with next faucet in line
I'd be interested if you come up with something better, because if I need to replace those lines it's going to turn into a weekend project.
 
Actually, no. I've been working on some other projects, so this has been sitting for a while.

Holy crap. I didn't realize that it's been this long sonce I started this thing.

I finished my bar and got everything setup, but I'm still working on completing the tower. I have working taps, but not my nitro setup or my drip tray.

I went with post #8 above. I had to order new shanks with an integrated tailpiece and new beer line clamps that I could close with needle nose pliers (no worm clamps).

I'll post some pictures when I finally get it all running. Hopefully it's soon. :D
 
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It's been awhile. I completed the tower and it's been working well.

I have 4 beer lines running from a kegerator designed for 3 kegs. The extra line is for a Nitro setup. I can have 3 CO2 beers, or 2 CO2 beers and a Nitro beer running at one time. So, 4 taps, but only 3 run at the same time. It works OK. I usually only have 2 beers going at once.

My biggest concern was cooling. I had a blower, but due to the size of the opening into my kegerator I couldn't use it. It was too constricted. My savior was the flow control Perlick taps. The first time I pull a beer, I set them to a trickle. This allows the lines to cool and any foaming is minimal. Once I've filled the the glass maybe 10%, I turn up the flow control to full blast, and the beer pours out without any foam. It works great, and I don't have to cool the tower all the time.
 
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Nice work! That looks like 2" black pipe not 3".

I was planning on tap tower similar to yours except I was going to add a 5th nitro stout tap in the upper center by using a cross in the center and come up with another T above that for the nitro stout tap. My plan is to use black foam pipe insulation with a slit down the center. If I can slide in the pipe insulation after the tower is assembled, my thought is that the beer line will be easier to twist inside the pipe to avoid the problem you ran into.

Glad to hear that you didn't have a major foam problem.
 
Nope. That's 3" black pipe. The finished tower weighs about 80 lbs. If I had it to do again, I'd probably go with 2" pipe.

As far as insulation, whatever you have to do to keep the beer lines away from the pipe should work. That pipe is very conductive, and will suck out any cold that touches it. The flow control perlicks are a must have for this type of tower IMHO.

I've even thought about adding some thin insulation between the taps and the black iron to keep it from leaching cold where they touch. Maybe a thin styrofoam, like the kind they use in metal buildings (double bubble is the name of it).
 
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b-boy said:
I've even thought about adding some thin insulation between the taps and the black iron to keep it from leaching cold where they touch. Maybe a thin styrofoam, like the kind they use in metal buildings (double bubble is the name of it).
Click to expand...

I thought about the same, I was thinking maybe O-rings.

I also have flow control perlicks, I will need to go with shorter shanks.
 
b-boy, that's a very nice looking tower. Although the 3 inch pipe is heavy, it looks much proportional with the taps than the 2 inch one.
 
It's very heavy.

I had to reinforce the underside of the counter with several cross 2x4s to handle the weight. I was going to screw it down to the countertop, but it's so heavy that I didn't bother. It doesn't move.

I thought the size was a bit much, until I added the tap handles. Now it looks pretty good. I've had a lot of compliments on it.

Thanks to FloppyKnockers for coming up with the tap mounting method back in post #8. It worked well. I occasionally have to tighten the nuts on one of them. I might try some spray adhesive to make the underside a little sticky and less prone to slipping. That or the rubber washers mentioned above.
 

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