folded keychain bottle opener: packaging

Ready to be mailed.

I sold my first folded keychain bottle opener (aka business card bottle opener)! But I ran into the problem of shipping. My original plan was to put it in a regular envelope. But I felt that without some support, the opener might tear the envelope and get lost in the mail. So I devised a simple package from a piece of cardboard.

Easy to remove.

To insert or remove the bottle opener, you simply bend the cardboard on the line and slide the opener in or out. The cardboard is slightly thicker than the opener so it is pressed down where the opener slides in. This also allows the opener to sit flush with the rest of the cardboard. When the opener is in the envelope, it stays flat and locked in the center.

The first piece I sent out was cut with a razor, but future ones will use a laser-cut piece. Ideally, the packaging could also be the mailer, but this worked and was very inexpensive to ship.

home still: condenser

I finally completed the condenser portion of the still. From the last update I brazed the coil into the main tube and added the collection portion of the condenser.

Collector before brazing.

This update took a little while because I was contemplating my approach for the collection portion. I eventually decided to approach it as simply as possible with a flat plate and a short tube up the center. These pieces were brazed to the stainless sanitary fitting and the fitting was then brazed to the outer tube. The center tube could be extended in the future by slipping another tube over. I will experiment with this to see which works better.

The condenser works by having the vapor come up the center through the small tube and condensing onto the cooling coil. It then drips downward and into the collection area formed by the plate and the two tubes. The liquid drains out through a tube on the bottom of the collector.

Completed condenser.

All the copper tube sections are completed. The next things to work on before testing the parts are the heating controls for the pot, and cooling system for the condenser and dephlegmator.