Adding Drop flues to a divided flat pan

[opiejudd]

Hello,

We are going to have some drop flues put into out new to us 30" x 8' pan we just got. Its a constant flow pan. We plan to put the drop flues on side of the pan towards the back. We are looking at having six 4' long by 6 or 7 inch deep by 1" wide flues put in, which would add just under 32 ft^2 of surface area which would more then double our surface area. Has any one done this before? Any opinions on this would be great. This is being done on a shoe string budget too. I will add a picture of the pan.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/08/14/ytupemyt.jpg

Thanks,
Ken

[Yellzee]

I did virtually the exact thing, except I didn't have a divider to start with. My main comment would be that it was very very very trickey to do the welding joint where the new flue piece goes into the cut out on the pan. The thin stainless really wants to distort and run away from the weld, especially on the long side. I had a guy doing it with years of tig experience with a tig and he really struggled. I might suggest putting a small bend on each side to give you an over lap (or a tab) than you can weld along or even braze instead of weld.

don't forget to ensure the new deep flues fit in your evaporator when you are done!:o

[Yellzee]

7926

here's picture of the bottom of the pan when it was done. I'm actually hoping to make a new pan this fall and retire this one. Probably a great fit for anyone with a smaller evaporator with a flat pan.

[opiejudd]

Thanks for the response. Definitively going to double check the max depth we can run before bending anything. I plan on checking the flues to make sure they are water tight before we cut a huge hole in our pan. I should have mentioned also We are going to try our best to have lip around the whole drop flue section. We even talked about riveting it first then soldering or welding it in. that way everything is held exactly where we want it before we put heat to it.

Thanks Ken

[Yellzee]

I can't really give you a good reason for it, but I'd be tempted to modify it to have 2 dividers so you have 3 sections. Then sap in one end and finished product coming out the other. Be interested to see what others have to say about that.

[opiejudd]

What you can't see in the picture. The divider is not centered and is offset and angled to the side of the draw off. The pan has a U shape flow to it now. From the picture sap goes in the end closes to you then it runs down to the far end. Where there is a hole in the divider. Then flows back down to you and there's a draw off there. I will have to get some better pictures of it. We are planning on pulling syrup off this pan.

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