Since the last post I have been painting and making pipes. I have painted the drums in a mid green chemical and rust proof pant by Hammerite. It has the traditional hammered finish but makes the drums look considerable smarter (even though I do say so myself).
I have also been busy forming the pipe work on the main processor tank. The red pipes have had to be cut by hand (hacksaw) and then threaded with a hand ratchet threader. This is very tedious but much cheaper than a powered device. It takes about 35 mins to cut and thread (both ends) of a section of pipe. Fortunately, they all fitted, though I was worried with one joint where it looked like the section would be a tad too short! (dodged a bullet though by tightening some other joints to reduce the last 1/8 inch).
The pipe work is made from black iron pipe as used in (natural) gas systems (and according to the supplier on airport fuel systems too). Its therefore quite heavy! Hence the small trolley jack in the bottom of the picture holding up the now rather off balance processor tank. The biggest weight is the blue pump mounted vertically to the side of the tank. In an ideal world it would have been tight to the tank but the plumbing it connects to at the base was just too long. Most of the parts are off the shelf so I have just had to deal = longer connectors etc.
This image shows the piping from the base of the tank to the base of the pump. Its an important section; it has a valve (ie a tap to empty/seal the tank), a spur for the sight tube (to see how full the tank is), a branch to the pump inlet and a branch with valve to the outside world for draining as needed. This is why its so long. (ooer!)
Once through the pump, the mixture rises vertically and then either goes back into the processor for recirculation (and further processing/mixing) or if the valve (in the above pic) is shut, it diverts into the other tank for settling prior to filtering.
Back into the top:
The next bit in the build is to plumb the settling tank. I've started but as yet I'm not certain about the links between these bits and the rest..... !?!
TBC
