OK..well all right,it's just a very old water distiller but it could sure pass for a home made reactor. $5 at a yard sale, how i resist!!!



here's a better photo.the weekend i "fired" it up i got five gallons of water out of that little drip pipe.


house water went into the lower boiler section and the top part has a cone shaped inside.you fill that with cold water and the steam condenses on the underside and runs into a tray and out the spout.the water in the condenser gets up to 100F after awhile so i learned to pour that into the boiler and refill with cold tap water to keep thing going.well made with a timer and overheat cut off switch.i checked out the maker on the web and found they changed their name from Clean Water Society to Company a few years ago.if nothing else if the tap water go's bad but the power is still on i could have pure drinking water.the coffee i'm having right now is made with the "fusion reactors" water and seems to be a bit smoother.

Someday, Canoedogs, someday, we'll be able to buy our own personal cold fusion reactor from a late night infomercial. Montel Williams, are you hearing me?

That's an interesting find. One question--so is there a lid? Once you pour cold water in that upper pot, with the cone-shaped bottom, it seems a bit odd to me that you'd just leave that open.

Do you know if that is that supposed to be a home model? With all the stainless, it has a "business" or "institutional" look to it, but that could just be the style, depending on how old it is.

Your $5 Cold Fusion Reactor certainly looks the business to counter the international PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

BTW how much did the DeLorean go for at the sale?

Arney..no lid,that's the way it came from the yard sale.i assume there is no lid on the top part to let any heat escape and keep it cooler.i tried putting ice and water in the upper part but that did not make it work any faster.i'm sure it's a home model from the 50's 60's??..i got it as more of joke because i thought it would never make much water but it filled a five gallon water cooler jug just fooling around that weekend.i'll try the water for this years batch of home made wine.
Fear..the "body fluids" bit from the movie was the first thing that came to mind,i assume the first buyer was thinking about getting fallout from their drinking water--

canoedogs... does the bottom pot come out where it could be used over a propane flame?, it looks like the heating element is integral with a thermostat. regards Les

Les..no,it's part of the base..however,and i did not think of this until you asked,i'll bet the condenser and the catch ring and spout would fit over a pot of the right size that i could run on just about any kind of heater..i'll fool around with that idea,thanks.

All you need is the "Mr. Fusion" sticker and you can be powering time traveling DeLoreans with banana peels. Given your cold location that unit will also serve as heater and humidifier. A three-for-one bargain.

I need to get to more yard sales. Last year I had to think about a Coleman stove. I went back & it was gone. $15.00 it looked almost new the can of fuel was more beat up. Sometimes yoiu live and learn.

Let's see........... a di-still-er, a five gallon bucket of sour mash, a crate of mason jars...what could you brew up with that?:)

A very long stay in federal prison.

-Blast

Thanks, Sheriff. lol

Maybe with prior offenses or a massive operation. Otherwise I doubt if it'd be that long. That said, home distillation of liquor is illegal! Oddly, I don't think making your own race care fuel is illegal everywhere: http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/.

Sort of seems like a double standard to me.

Didn't Opie find one in a shed that made flowers?

Blast,
Say it isn't so!

Actually, US government regulations on producing your own ethanol fuel are very strict, including minimum limits on the acres of land the still must be located along with distance from other buildings and a slew of other stuff. In the end, you need to have a fairly large farm to meet all their laws. I learned this several years ago when I worked with a company to try and develop solar-powered stills for making fuel ethanol. In the end the regulations made the market for these stills so small that it wasn't worth producing them.

-Blast

Blast, funny you should mention biofuels since I had just run across this article:

Scottish scientists develop whiskey biofuel

They use the waste products of whiskey production to make the ethanol--whiskey plus fuel. They can have their cake and eat it, too.

I would certainly check on the law but as I understand it as long as you keep production under a set limit, I understood it to be anything less than fifteen gallons, but be sure to double check, and your not selling it, your legal.

Of course if you cross that line in amount and for sales the regulations get to be complicated and penalties severe. But even then, as I understand it, if you denature the alcohol by adding various ingredients to make it unsuitable for drinking, you can avoid having to get alcohol tax stamps as you would for liquor.

From the government's website:

Spirits

You cannot produce spirits for beverage purposes without paying taxes and without prior approval of paperwork to operate a distilled spirits plant. [See 26 U.S.C. 5601 & 5602 for some of the criminal penalties.] There are numerous requirements that must be met that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are paying special tax, filing an extensive application, filing a bond, providing adequate equipment to measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines, providing a separate building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining detailed records, and filing reports. All of these requirements are listed in 27 CFR Part 19.

Spirits may be produced for non-beverage purposes for fuel use only without payment of tax, but you also must file an application, receive TTB's approval, and follow requirements, such as construction, use, records and reports.

In other words: No.

This makes me very sad.
-Blast

What if, in the spirit of the new Green Economy, I just let my kidneys add those 'various ingredients'? The finished product is sure to be a hit with some Tour De France racers, and NFL fullbacks.