5/16" tubing (laterals on gravity)

[English River Maple]

Anyone have any findings or advice on the best possible tubing to use for laterals? We are currently using Lapierre "ridgid" tubing. I have a 500' roll of Leader tubing to try. I'm hoping it doesn't sag as much after being up for only 2 weeks. We are operating on gravity and would like to see less sagging in the lines. They seems to be tight when installed, but sag in the following days after.

Thanks

[sapman28]

I used the Lapierre semi-rigid last year, put it up in February, and was working on last weekend and it was still good. You can stretch it very tight any time of year, been using semi rigid for many years and had very good luck with it. I am also all gravity. i also really like the clear disposable spouts from lapierre. Never beena big fan of rigid tubing, too hard to work with.

[English River Maple]

Sapman, thanks for sharing your experience. We did use semi-ridgid on our drop lines and found it to be difficult to work with. We had alot of trouble installing T's with the hand tool. When you squeeze the handles to compress the line on the T, the line would fold over, crush, etc. It almost seemed to have too much elasticity. So, we are now using ridgid for the drops aswell. We have some leftover, I may try some of the semi-ridgid for laterals as you mentioned. It's worth the test, what the heck. Glad to hear you had good luch with the 5/16 clear spouts...we intend to do the same I believe. The 90deg. clear.

Thanks again for your info.

[waysidemaple]

Leader 30P is probably the cheapest you can buy and I have no complaints. I've used CDL tubing as well and that stuff works good to.

Scott

[adk1]

Sapman, thanks for sharing your experience. We did use semi-ridgid on our drop lines and found it to be difficult to work with. We had alot of trouble installing T's with the hand tool. When you squeeze the handles to compress the line on the T, the line would fold over, crush, etc. It almost seemed to have too much elasticity. So, we are now using ridgid for the drops aswell. We have some leftover, I may try some of the semi-ridgid for laterals as you mentioned. It's worth the test, what the heck. Glad to hear you had good luch with the 5/16 clear spouts...we intend to do the same I believe. The 90deg. clear.

Thanks again for your info.

Great, I bought the flex line since I plan on taking the lats down each spring

[Greenwich Maple Man]

Anyone have any findings or advice on the best possible tubing to use for laterals? We are currently using Lapierre "ridgid" tubing. I have a 500' roll of Leader tubing to try. I'm hoping it doesn't sag as much after being up for only 2 weeks. We are operating on gravity and would like to see less sagging in the lines. They seems to be tight when installed, but sag in the following days after.

Thanks

I use Leader 30p and have zero complaints. You have to be sure to make your drops long enough or it will kink. Stays tight and has good flow. I have also used there All Season , I thinks it called . Worked realy well for drops but stretched to easy for laterals. At least that is what I found.

[English River Maple]

Thanks again for the info. As soon as I try our leader tubing (max flow grip), I will share my findings. It'll be a good comparison. If we were on vacuum I wouldn't be so concerned. Some of our taps we will have to use a step ladder to tap already just to make grade with the tubing, I would hate to have to use a 6' ladder because I had to go higher (exagerating)

[adk1]

I am alittle worried that I didnt run my mainline wire high enough. I have the same problem, I have a little valley that drops down about 10+ feet where my mainline has run perpendicular across but still following the natural slope. I want to say tha on average the mainline is about waist high, sometimes alittle lower, sometimes alittle higher. Thinking that still having 2 of snow on the ground come time to tap my lats are gonna have a serious grade to them.

[northwoods_forestry]

I've pretty much settled on 30p rigid for laterals and whatever is on sale semi-rigid for drops. Max-flow grip is too spendy for me to use for laterals, but I would consider for drops. I've used semi-rigid for laterals and have not been happy with the sagging and streching. I also do most of my pipeline installation in winter and have never found the rigid difficult to work with, even in cold temps. One problem I did run into, however, was that the one-hand tubing tool doesn't work on on cold 30p rigid tubing. Had to get myself a 2-hand tool, which was a darn good investment.

[English River Maple]

We just tried leader max flow grip tubing last week. It performed good while stringing it along around the trees to make each lateral run but was a pain in the a__ when trying to insert a "T" or EOL with the one handed tool. We basically have the same problem with this max flow tubing as we had with the Lapierre semi-rigid. It has a ton of elasticity and does not perform well with the 1 sided tubing installation tool. Our tubing of choice, hands down, it the Lapierre rigid at this point, who knows what the future will bring.

Our mainline on gravity in a few places is only 3ft off the ground. We didn't really have a choice, in fact it may be a little lower than that. In order to get the laterals to make grade to the mainline we had to really hike the lines up the tree on some of them...as much as 5-6 ft. Making sure the lines have some down-grade to them has been a bit challenging. In fact, my brother brought his laser level transit over for some parts of the mainline so we could make sure we were using all we could get since we were so close in some areas. The best answer to all these little pains I guess would be vacuum. Can't wait for that! We'll have to make do on gravity for a year or two so we can generate some green-backs.

[sapman28]

I have been using a one hand tool for many years with the semi-rigid tubing, Lapierre,Cdl, Ipl and have very few problems putting in fittings. You only leave about an 1/8" out of the clamp and push it right on works everytime. I don't own a two-handed tool, But i always borrow one when we go through and put the drops in. My one handed tool is not the self adjusting one and it came from Bascoms many years ago.

[English River Maple]

Interesting. Can you send me a picture? Sounds to me like your one handed tool may be a slightly different design. If we only leave .125 of the tubing sticking out of the inside of the tubing clamp, the other side of the tool will not fully engage the fitting into the tubing when fully squeezed. Basically, when the tool is squeezed tightly together, there is still a significant amount of space there between both sides. The tubing is so soft, we struggle when trying to get it over the first barb on the fitting. When you do get it started, the small amount of extra space between the first barb and the tubing gripper folds over and crushes like it has absolutely no wall rigidity. Our only other thought was to carry a sponge soaked in isopropyl alcohol to create some temporary and sanitary lubrication. We would like not to because it just ads another unwanted step to the process. Frustrating.

[sapman28]

Bascoms online catalog , part# TFM1. I'm awful with computers so I can't link it to this site. If someone else can that would be great.

[swampbuck]

Interesting. Can you send me a picture? Sounds to me like your one handed tool may be a slightly different design. If we only leave .125 of the tubing sticking out of the inside of the tubing clamp, the other side of the tool will not fully engage the fitting into the tubing when fully squeezed. Basically, when the tool is squeezed tightly together, there is still a significant amount of space there between both sides. The tubing is so soft, we struggle when trying to get it over the first barb on the fitting. When you do get it started, the small amount of extra space between the first barb and the tubing gripper folds over and crushes like it has absolutely no wall rigidity. Our only other thought was to carry a sponge soaked in isopropyl alcohol to create some temporary and sanitary lubrication. We would like not to because it just ads another unwanted step to the process. Frustrating.

How you doing brother? Our one handed tool is made by Pruno.
Here it is:http://www.equipementsderabliere.elapierre.com/produits_en.asp?id_categorie=344&id_groupeproduit=173&page=1
As English River said, no complaints at all with the tools operation, it just does not like the semi-rigid tubing.

[English River Maple]

How you doing brother? Our one handed tool is made by Pruno.
Here it is:http://www.equipementsderabliere.elapierre.com/produits_en.asp?id_categorie=344&id_groupeproduit=173&page=1
As English River said, no complaints at all with the tools operation, it just does not like the semi-rigid tubing.

hi I am good, can't wait to get in the woods tomorrow to hunt. I see you found our discussion. I have to add, I really like the leader max flow tubing, I just hate that it won't work well with the fittings. It seemed to be noticeably lighter in weight and slid nicely in my hands when doing the pull-back to tighten the lines from the EOL. I believe that they even advertise it as having a slightly larger ID as compared to other industry 5/16" tubing. Not certain though.