brewery build progress

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This has been  the slowest build I've ever undertaken.Anyhoo here is pedestal #1 of 3  it needs the  three holes in the top for the piping to pass down through into the guts of the brewery but the steel welded  mounts are all done and metal flake painted along with the pedestal and the top is carved and inlaid with metal flakeCheck 'em outYou Tube videolink The mounts started out like so:Here they (one is) are all painted and mounted Attached ImagesLast edited by Raul; 06-19-2013 at 01:25 PM.Hey~!! It's a hobby. It's not supposed to make sense~!!
Reply:Nice, do you have pictures where its gonna sit in the brewery lab??
Reply:Yeah I would be interested in any finished pics you have of the facility.  I am the plant engineer at a biggerish micro brewery (40,000 barrels this year) and am always looking for new ideas as we are outgrowing everything!
Reply:here's one of a finished pedestal. I had to drill three holes for the piping and then finish them with little button rings made from maple and painted  black with a blue metal flake and clear coat.  The little rings cover any misalignment  of the hole and the piping plus I think they are cute.Hey~!! It's a hobby. It's not supposed to make sense~!!
Reply:As an aside:To do the carving on these three pedestals I built a 3-D pantograph router,  then cut the letters out on a scroll saw three times oversize and routed them in the siberian elm pedestal tops. The routed lettering was filled with a clear coat overloaded with a coppery metal flake and clear coated over top.  The clear coat is General Finishes Enduro  Pre Cat  181 over  BLO  with a wash-coat of superblond shellac to seal in the BLO as you can get real bad results using a water based finish over BLO.The pedestal  bodies are  15 sided coopered up from  cabinet grade plywood treated with regular joint compound to close the grain and painted with Moore eggshell blue and  treated with blue metal flake and clea-rcoated. There are three pedestals with 3-way valves. There are two  pumps. The valves will control the flow of water and wort from the 20 gallon mash tun to the 20 gallon kettle and back again and through the RIMS heater and then to the fermenter.  There is an integral  chiller in the kettle made from 80  feet of 1/5" thinwall SST tubing that will carry cold water to cool the wort after the boil. The fermenter will (eventually) get it's temp control VIA two or three  ramped Peltier units  with mounts  welded to the fermenter body.I wish I had a welder when I started this project. It's have saved me a lot of messing around trying to get seals in the kettle and Tun as I had to knock holes in them to run on the electric heater elements, the chiller,  and for in & out flow of fluids.Hey~!! It's a hobby. It's not supposed to make sense~!!