THe Arch is home

[ibby458]

We fetched the arch yesterday. This started out as a 2x6 Leader King, but the owner added a 2x3 ripple bottom middle pan. I built a 3 x 10' stone boat, and 6 of us lifted it onto the stone boat and I fastened it down with ratchet straps.

As I drew it out of the crumbling sugar house and down the road towards home with the tractor, the boat flexed and the 3' section he had added for the middle pan crumbled and fell out. The angle iron framework is still sound, but the sheet metal sides and bottom are toast.

We gotta cut wood today while the kids are home to help, but tomorrow morning, I'll be bending metal, bolting it in place and re-bricking it. Fishplate the broken front, level it up, and install the pans and gaskets, and she'll be ready.

OOps! - Gotta head to the tin-knockers Tuesday for a stack. Hope he hasn't gotten busy yet.

Oh - Still got the flue pan to scrub up yet. It's been soaking in pan cleaner overnight. I'll clean & neutralize it this morning, and all will be shiney SS again.

Hmmmm. I suppose if I quit playing on the computer, I'd be ready faster, right?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Your progress is exciting to hear about. Keep up the great work and can't wait to see the pics. Sounds like you may end up with a great evaporator for a good price. :D

[maplwrks]

Ibby,
Make sure when that first syrup comes off you toast yourself and your family for all your hard work!!!

[Rob Harvey]

Funny we do that at almost every drawoff.

[maplwrks]

I guess I do it more often than that, which is why I end up like toast!!!!!!!!!

[ibby458]

Thanks for all your kind words & encouragement. It helps keep me going when sometimes it looked hopeless.

THe only really bad part is that I don't own this rig yet. THe retiring farmer told me to use it one season, then we'd dicker on price. Obviously, I want to pay what it was worth BEFORE I cleaned & fixed things. He'll want what it's worth now. I dunno if we can meet in the middle or not. I won't pay more than it's worth.

AS I reassemble it, I'm leaving it on the stoneboat. If we can't agree, I'll haul it back to him after the season and look for another. I can't say the work was wasted, cuz I enjoyed taking what was essentially a pile of scrap, and returning it to usefullness, I'll have it to use this year, and I will have done a favor for a friend/neighbor. Not such bad things.

I'm just patching the arch for now. If I do buy it, I'll rebuild it totally from scratch. I've been accumulating SS sheeting & angle for years, and I'll build an all new Stainless arch, reusing only the back end with the stack port. (THe only thing that's not rusted thru, cracked or broken) Fred has convinced me that I can build a air-tight arch front myself, and I got some 1/8" SS plate to do it with. (Instead of LEADER across the front over the door, I'd put FOLLOWER (It's not a Leader)).

I'm sure looking forward to a sip of the first drawoff. Unfortunately, I'm a diabetic, and that's all I can have. I enjoy my occasional sip just as much as I used to enjoy the quarts I'd pour on pancakes. The satisfaction of knowing I did the very best I could on the syrup is gratifying. Even more so when friends & family enjoy it to their hearts content, and customers with handsfull of hard-earned cash plunk it down and agree with me.