I would ideas on a small backpacking size pocket distiller. I was thinking that all i needed was a pot with lid and some coiled copper tubing that I could store inside the pot when not in use.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated

One of the neatest setups I've come across was a backpacking tea kettle with a plastic tube coming out of the spout. The steam condensed in the tube and water dripped into a cup.

What are we distilling? Salt water into fresh? If so, your source vessel is going to take a beating- you might want to think about enamel.

I really didn't plan on distilling anything specific but rather was thinking that by adding some copper tubing to my titanium pot and lid I would be able to distill anything from sea water to flood water in the even of an emergency. But I would guess that you would need lots of fuel to distill a gallon of water a day or so.

Keep in mind that flood waters would likely have petroleum products in them and those could distill before water would, which means you'd have distillated petroleum in the "cean" water.

Somewhere I have a book, can remember the author or title (or what I had for breakfast) right now, but this guy, from England, walked all the way around Baja California, Mexico, following the coastline almost all the way. He got a large portion of his drinking water by that method. He carried a regular old stainless steel "tea pot" (like you heat water on the stove with, little whistle in the cap), and some stainless steel tubing. Using sea water and drift wood, it worked like a champ...

To be effective your need a cooling jacket for the tubing. It would take making a hole in the lid of the pot and fastening a small copper flang in the whole and then the tubing to the flange. I guess you could drape a wet towel over the tubing and keep pouring water on to the towel to facilitate cooling. It is feasable but takes more then just some copper tubing. and an ordinary pot lid you need to make some modifications.
cheers

the book was "The Complete Walker" by Colin Fletcher, his was a clean gallon paint can with copper coiled tubing that would fit to a flange on the lid and could be stored inside.

Nope, mine was by a Brit named Ian something I think, walking around Baja during a midlife crisis. I had forgotten about Colin writing about it also...

I don't know of any small distillers that you could take backpacking, but I bought this self assembly distiller:

http://www.conquestinc.com/lifesaverdistiller.htm

It works, but the plastic hose makes the distilled water taste like crapola. The "food grade" hose may be safe with food/water, but it can't handle the heat. I guess I need some copper hose, but haven't followed thru on that yet.