Sap Ladder

[kiegscustoms]

I have heard 10 taps per spoke on a star, (6 way star will do 60 taps). My question is will it hurt anything if you had less taps per spoke (40 taps per 6 way star)? I have 2 10' lifts right next to each other to get over the driveway, and I want to make sure 1: I have enough vac transfer and 2: That i don't compermise the effectiveness by having to many pipes.

[ennismaple]

We have as few as 25 taps on a 6-way star and it functions fine. It may work better with a 3-way star but I haven't bothered to test it out.

[kiegscustoms]

I'm Lifting about 200. Just deciding weather I should do 3 or 4 stars.

[tuckermtn]

with that many you might want to two a two pipe ladder instead of the star ladders. I am doing one on 200 taps with 3/4" pipe.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

A couple of years ago I spoke with a technician from D&G about star ladders. His recommendation was a six way star for 25 taps. I usually don't go down quite to that level but if I'm close to the 10 taps per line mark, I usually install an extra star. All my ladders seem to perform well with good vacuum transfer.

[kiegscustoms]

I have heard about these 2 pipe ladders but cant quite understand how they work. I have all the parts to do a star ladder, so I think I will go with that. When you put your valve in at the bottom you just use that to drain the ladder at night, and to get the sap started in the morning right? You don't leave it open all the time?

[kiegscustoms]

Well, I just went out to the sugar house to start putting pieces together for the star ladder and thought to myself, I just spent $140 on stars and "t"s and this is going to take an entire roll of 5/16 tubing. Seems a lot cheaper to use 2 pipe seeing as how I still have a bunch of 3/4 tubing left. If anyone can give me some more info on the 2 pipe system or draw a diagram that would be great! Thanks -Kienan

[Monster Maples]

Check out Russel Lampron. In his photobucket he has a pic of one. It is one of the better pics of one that I have seen.

[tuckermtn]

search for two pipe ladder on here- sapman also has some picts and there is an article link on here from Ontario I think. I just built mine but haven't installed it yet. we will see how it goes.

[ennismaple]

I've got a pic of our 2-pipe ladder in my Photobucket account as well. The valve on the bottom is just for year-end washing.