Stainless Steel Elbow Shank Assembly

The stainless steel elbow shank assemblies arrived on friday. It took me a while to order these because I was not convinced that these would be a perfect fit for my 4" draft tower.

Draft towers are made in numerous sizes. Probably the most popular size is 3". The draft tower I purchased is 4". The curve of the flange would ideally match the arc of the draft tower for a perfect fit.

When looking for shank assemblies, you can then see why I expected to find different arched flanges for the specific tower diameter. Apparently, though, this is not the case. It appears that the only such assemblies are one-size-fits-all.....so I had to settle for this.

As a result, I was rather worried about the fit for these assemblies. Turns out that I was right to be concerned about this. These flanges do not fit perfectly. I think it is close enough where no one (but me) will notice it. But, the main concern is getting the assemblies tight enough to be solidly attached, but not too tight to bend the tower surface.

The flange is clearly a smaller arc than the 4" diameter draft tower. It would be my guess that this assembly would fit a 3" tower perfectly. As a result of the flange having a smaller arc, when set against a 4" tower, the outside edges of the flange touch the walls of the tower whereas the middle of the flange does not touch the tower. This is unfortunate because you would like it the other way around. It would be much better if the middle was flush and the outside edges flared out a bit and didn't touch the tower. In that instance, you would not have to worry about bending the tower noticeably.

I do not want to over exaggerate the issue - the gap is fairly small and you likely would not notice it visually unless you were looking for it. Once you look directly at the outer flange from the top, you can clearly see the gap. I think this will work as long as I don't over tighten the flanges and bend the tower as a result.

I think a small rubber washer between the curved flange and the draft tower would be a good idea so that the outside edges of the flange don't "dig" into the tower surface.

Above is a rather poor attempt to take a picture showing the gap between the draft tower and the curved flange. Below is a picture of the assembled draft tower and drip tray.