drop lines spinning on fittings

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

I have a woods that is about 3700 taps. This section was set up and has 30-P for laterals and Leader's memory flex for drop lines. Most of the drops can be spun on the fittings ("T" and stubby). I was wondering if anybody has any experience as to how much vacuum loss I could have with this. Is it possible to maintain vacuum in the mid 20 inch range with this problem if the big leaks are fixed? I have a 60 CFM oil cooled ring pump, so it should handle the woods fine without these leaks. I switched over to 4-seasons for drops in my other woods and this tubing really seams to hold well.

[spud]

I would not take a chance on these drops. I would change all of them before sugaring season. It is hard to say if you could still keep vacuum in the 20s until you try. I would not be willing to gamble unless you just can't afford new drops at this time. This would take 23 rolls of tubing and 3700 Ts and about 4-5 days of your time. It is sounding like about $2000.00 to change everything.

Spud

[maplecrest]

Well one fix is to go thru all of them checking for spinners .cut tube as close to fitting as possible. Then take the clippers and go down tube carefully not scoring barbs.with take a few practice try's to get hang of it.push cut off tube back on fitting.if score fitting put in new one. But you can go thru that whole woods in a day. I used leader tubing years ago and had same results. When I switched to ipl four seasons i heated tube with hot water to put them togather got same results.in no time. I still find them even put togather with drop maker.thick and thin tubing.that is a quick fix. Could last a couple seasons. But you will need new drops.before we got really serious about leaks all my woods were like that. But when started running pumps all season long caused early freeze ups in lines. You could watch the lines freeze where the leaks were. If you shut your pumps off at night.and start when sap is running in morning. You will be fine.and hold higher vac levels till freeze.

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

Thanks for the replies. Last year I tried to cut the drop line off of the fitting and resocket it. I did this during the season to get by. I have a little time right now to swap out the drops, but I wanted to make sure it was worth the time and money to do so.

[wiam]

I have talked to several producers that will not reuse a fitting. Too much chance of nicking when cutting off tubing, then you have another leak to find. I do not reuse.

[Maplewalnut]

I reuse fittings routinely and do just as maplecrest suggests. I have about a 5% leak rate. For my 1500 taps ts easy to find them, larger operations may want to change everything out at once

[DrTimPerkins]

I have talked to several producers that will not reuse a fitting. Too much chance of nicking when cutting off tubing, then you have another leak to find. I do not reuse.

On gravity, reusing fittings isn't much of a problem. On vacuum, especially high-vacuum, most producers don't reuse fittings.

As far as spinning fittings on tubing....what kind (brand, type) of tubing and what fittings (brand, type) were you using? Some combinations don't work as well as others.

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

I used the Leader Memory flex that was discontinued, and Leader "t"s. I made the drops with warm water which I learned was a mistake, and now use a drop line maker. I did notice in the woods that the Memory Flex even spins on the Leader end rings, and these connections were put together with a tool. I wonder if this was a problem with the tubing, and that is why they now make the Max Flow Flex for drop lines? Did anybody else use the Memory Flex when they made it? This time, I am using 4-Seasons for drops, and assembling the drops with a tool.

[TunbridgeDave]

We bought a few rolls of Memory Flex years ago and am glad they don't make it any more. I didn't find that the tubing spun on the fittings though. I think it was the opposite. I remember making a bunch of drops with leader t's and the tubing tool and having a tough time putting them together. I returned the unopened rolls and use 30p for everything. I agree with everyone about not re-using fittings but there is a special tool you can buy to cut the tubing off.