Well its not a great amount of progress but, its progress. I'm almost ready to start welding pieces together. A little more fitting to do and a couple more parts to acquire.
I took the cylinder I made and cut a 4 1/2" section off of it. I then sized the ends of it so its larger then the orignal size. It currently goes over the other section but I want it to be a little bigger.
This pic shows the ends. The middle is smaller in diameter.
This pic shows how it slide over the other section.
This is the drain I made. I'm going to have a bottom drain on this kettle. I welded a reducer to a piece of tubing and polished it.
I didn't like the bottom I had laser cut. So I took the bottom that I already started for this project, when I was just going to jacket the bottom. I cut this one myself.
You can see where I have it scribed to cut out the half coupling. The new drain will be going on.
I hope I don't loose you folks here. This is the inner assembly mocked up and not placed inside yet. This is just to give you an idea of how the parts fit in the end. You can see the three separate pieces minus the keg.
This is the bottom inner piece. This will be welded to the keg and have the bottom attached to it. This whole piece will be jacketed with steam. Just this bottom section will hold 6.5 gallons.
This is the final fit to the keg.
This is the fit of the middle section. This will get welded to the top of the keg. Its whole purpose is to extend the keg upward. A place for the foam to rise into and hold the rolling action of the boil. I want to size it bigger due to the fact that after I weld in the lower piece and polish the weld. That lip will be rounded.
This is the last piece. The transition. I'm going to build this so that only from the top of the handle holes up is visible through the top of the stand. Like what you see in the big breweries.
Thanks for looking.
If there are any questions I'd be glad to answer them and make things as clear as mud.