DIY Retort Stand

[jason_recliner]

I like to use the tops from old mineral water bottles as a funnel. They're effectively free and are easy to customise to the right size for filters. They're also easily plentiful to dedicate them to the material you're working with.

The issue is, like pretty much all funnels, they take up half the beaker space. It's even worse in a tiny beaker.


I checked out retort stands and they start at about AUD$60 - without attachments like bosses and clamps! I thought I'd whip one up on an aluminium rod, then walked past a trouser hanger and had a lightbulb moment.


Construction is pretty obvious from the result photo. But in a nutshell:

• Cut off or rip out the hanger hook.
• Only one of the crimped ends (the top one) is filed down or cut off, to be able to slide off one of the clamps, and to fit through the rod holes.
• I used a leftover piece of Tasmanian Oak for strength, particularly at the rod base. You could probably get away with pine.
• The rod hole in the base is just large enough to force the rod through. In my case, 1/4". The crimped end is hammered into the hardwood from the underside.
• The rod hole in the funnel holder is just large enough to slip through, without it tilting. In my case, 17/64".
• I used a 35mm Forstner bit for the ring.

Sorted! It took me about as long to write it up as to build it.
The metal clamp has plenty of grip, but the weight is actually taken by the timber on the rod, not on the clamp. Ideally the timber grain would run the other way, but it's not meant for housebricks.

 

[g_axelsson]

Nice work!

A drawback of the plastic bottle over ordinary funnels is that the pipe below is so wide and short. In a funnel with a long narrow pipe the liquid could form a simple vacuum pump to actually suck the solution through the filter.
But this stand would work just as good with an ordinary funnel too.

Actually your idea got me thinking on another problem I was working with. To draw process gases from a reaction into a scrubber to avoid having to scrub the air from a fume hood is good practice. From a flask is no problem, just use a rubber stopper and a tube, but from a beaker full of CPU:s is a harder problem. I was thinking plastic funnels turned upside down, but the plastic bottle is probably both cheaper and easier to adopt. Thanks for putting me on right track.

Göran

 

[jason_recliner]

Ah! I always wondered why the glass ones I've seen online had such a long, thin, exit tube. One day I'll get some for very clean final refining.
And Göran, I am delighted if sharing my idea can help trigger your ideas. :mrgreen:

 

[4metals]

Nice work, when I saw this;
"a leftover piece of Tasmanian Oak"
I realized you're not from around here!

 

[rickbb]

Nice work!

A drawback of the plastic bottle over ordinary funnels is that the pipe below is so wide and short. In a funnel with a long narrow pipe the liquid could form a simple vacuum pump to actually suck the solution through the filter.
But this stand would work just as good with an ordinary funnel too.

Actually your idea got me thinking on another problem I was working with. To draw process gases from a reaction into a scrubber to avoid having to scrub the air from a fume hood is good practice. From a flask is no problem, just use a rubber stopper and a tube, but from a beaker full of CPU:s is a harder problem. I was thinking plastic funnels turned upside down, but the plastic bottle is probably both cheaper and easier to adopt. Thanks for putting me on right track.

Göran

There is a member here that has a scrubber setup using a plastic funnel in just that way. Upside down funnel with a plastic hose clamped on the neck feeding into the flasks of neutralizing liquids. Somewhere is a thread with pics of it. (I'd try and find it but I suck at using the search function.)