alternative materials for lateral tubing?

[michiganfarmer2]

Has anyone experimented with anything other than plastic for lateral lines? Copper? stainless? schedule 40 PC? Wire braided anything?

Squirels keep destroying mine.

I have my mainline up on high tensile wire, and side tied away from the trees. Critters arent bothering that.

Maybe I need to coil the latterals back on the mains during the off season.

[Farmboy]

Keep using maple tubing. Thats what its made for and its the cheapest. Copper is 10 times or more the cost of poly tubing. I have a solution for the squirrels though. If you far enough away from your neibors sit out there with a shotgun and work on your target practice. If a shotgun is too loud a .22 with shots or subsonics works good. If you dont have guns get a pellet gun at walmart. 1000 fps should do the trick. With a scope you can easily take head shots up to 50 yards. Also if the woods is near your house set a few hav a heart traps on the edge of the woods with bread in them and every day you will get a squirrel. Use bread for bait then you womt catch the neibors cats in it. Hopefully one of those options will work for you.

[adk1]

sure, the producer I help out uses all metal. they come in 36" sections. mainline and then smaller dia lateral line. has little hooks on it and it hangs on wire. been using it for 100 years I guess.

[sugarstone]

Has anyone experimented with anything other than plastic for lateral lines? Copper? stainless? schedule 40 PC? Wire braided anything?

Squirels keep destroying mine.

I have my mainline up on high tensile wire, and side tied away from the trees. Critters arent bothering that.

Maybe I need to coil the latterals back on the mains during the off season.

Stick with maple tubing.
Its probably just a "boom" in their cycle. We had major issues here awhile back with the little buggers. By-product of clorox is salt, so if you are cleaning with that and not rinsing, that might be the reason.
You also might have a good habitat for them...big, over-mature maples with cavities, conifer patches, etc...

[adk1]

Maybe you should get a few of those fake owls and put then around in your sugarbush.

[maple flats]

The squirrel problem might well be in how you clean (or don't clean) after the season. Since I started using hydrogen peroxide my squirrel damage has dropped to about 5% of what it used to be. Most times where I find damage I can see a less thasn perfect cleaning job at that point. The squirrels are basically after what is in the tubing, either fermented sap or salts from your cleaning method.

[michiganfarmer2]

thanks for the replies. I like the H2O2 idea.

I had another thoguht. If I put my branch lines on wire, and use an electric fence handle to attach the wire at the end of the run, it will be an easy thing to unhook it, and hang it on the mainline at the end of the season.

The reason Im fretting about this so much is once my kids are grown and gone, this is going to be a one person operation, so I have to be able to handle this on my own. I need to find a way to avoid lots of repairs every year.

[mapleack]

sure, the producer I help out uses all metal. they come in 36" sections. mainline and then smaller dia lateral line. has little hooks on it and it hangs on wire. been using it for 100 years I guess.

Wow, still in use! We need pictures ASAP. I haven't seen that stuff outside of museums!

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Wow, still in use! We need pictures ASAP. I haven't seen that stuff outside of museums!

Hurry up ADK, Can't find any pics on interweb