How to Assemble a CrystalDragon
One of the nicest looking pieces of equipment from StillDragon is the CrystalDragon; sometimes considered a showroom piece, the CrystalDragon offers a glass column so that the copper plates are clearly visible with little interference. This shiny design also offers the distiller the opportunity to see how the plates are behaving and can easily demonstrate to customers how distillation works. It really is a beauty- however biased I may be.
Unpacking your CrystalDragon can be a little daunting however, there are a lot of pieces to create this beauty.
The first thing you should do is unpack everything, and give it a good once over to make sure nothing was damaged in shipping- especially the edges of the glass pieces. Although the edges of the glass are polished to prevent chipping and cracking, sometimes the shipping company jostles the box and damage may occur. IF there are damages, send us a picture and we will get that fixed for you. As you’re unpacking, sort all of the equipment to put the plates with plates and gaskets with gaskets.
Once you’ve got everything unpacked and sorted, the next step should be assembling your plates. For a quick and easy video for putting them together look here:
As you complete each plate, slide it into the slit on the inside of your CrystalDragon gasket.
Now, if you have a starter collar, go ahead and put it on your kettle, you’ll just need a standard gasket and clamp. Then you can connect the DragonFlange, which is the base of your CrystalDragon column, then add one of your populated plates to the gasket.
The gasket and plate should snuggly fit in the DragonFlange, and the gasket should be just about level with the top of the flange. At this point, you have 2 options – you can add your CrystalDragon Rods to the bottom flange now or wait until the end. The benefit of adding them now is that it will make lining up the top flange super easy- you just slide the rods into the top flange. The downside to adding them now is that they can be kind of a nuisance to work around while adding glass and gaskets. Either way works though.
After deciding about the order of the rods, we can add the first piece of glass, it should fit into the trench of the CrystalDragon gasket quite snug, with not much wiggle room. On top of the glass goes another populated plate and gasket. Continue this process for the rest of the glass pieces.
Once you’ve put your last piece of glass on, add the top gasket and the top CrystalDragon Flange. Take note that you cannot use a plate in the gasket for the top flange. If you haven’t already, add the CrystalDragon Rods and tighten the nuts to securely fasten the column together. You’ll want to do this gently, using a star pattern tightening system, think tightening lug nuts.
There are no torque specifications because most torque wrenches don’t register that low; tightening the nuts comes down to hand tightening. It does not require that much pressure to create a good seal, the system is otherwise open to the atmosphere. You will be able to notice if you have overtightened because the gaskets could start to bulge out, or the glasses can become misaligned.
We are now ready to assemble the rest of the column. This video nicely explains how to assemble the still
If you have any questions, give us a call at 561-845-8009 or email Brad at brad@stilldragon.com and we will be able to answer any questions you may have.
