Flue Spacing ?

[labman]

What kind of spacing is there between the flues on a sap pan ?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

On my drop flue, I have aproximately 1", on a raised flue, there is more spacing.

[ibby458]

My raised flue has about 1.5 Inches fire space between flues, with about 5/8" sap space. Building your own flue pan?

[labman]

I'm gonna try, How many passages are needed in a 3x8 sap pan. Whats the best way to change the sap flow ? Would little sliding gates work ?
Thanks for any and all advice.

[WF MASON]

By 'passages', I assume you your speaking of Bible verses, prayer is always a good thing before starting a flue pan.

[ibby458]

I built just one flue before deciding to buy a used evaporator. I couldn't get it bent for a 5/8" sap space (- too tight for my brake), so I made it one inch wide. My plan was to make a flat pan, and cut slots in the bottom to drop in as many flues as I could fit in there (1" apart), and solder them in place. Now that I've seen how a raised flue is built, I think they might be easier to build, with a long common end for all the flues, with a hole or notch between them for the sap to pass thru.

I figured then (and still do) that if you make as many flues as you can fit in, as deep as is practical, and can keep it from leaking, it'll make syrup. It might be a few gph less efficient than a scientifically designed evaporator, but it'll still work.

Both of the "store bought" evaporators that I've used had brass plugs to change the flow. I had accumulated a bunch of 1-1/2" and 2" brass gate valves, so I was going to solder them in my homemade unit dividers to switch flows.

[sugaring42long]

W.F. Mason, How do you bend flues on your pans? Do you use a regular leaf type brake or a press brake? I like the way Leader makes their drop flue pans with the triangle shape flues. Looks hard to do with a leaf brake though.
Pray for me as I might try to build a welded drop flue pan.

[WF MASON]

Some of the 'big guys' use a strip welder to weld the flues together. Joining two pieces. Some use a hydraulic apron break,some poor souls use an hand apron break with the apron removed to get tight bends. On a press break the flues will hit the tooling when you try to get the secound deep bend. You'd need really deep special tooling to get the bends. A guy in Vermont told me once he had worked at a company in NY that made transformers , and he ran a break that had the deep tooling for making the fins, now he was into sugaring he wished he still worked there. You can make flues like Leader , but you need a machined bar with the bevel on it to clamp your pcs to.