Establishing slope of tubing - One poor man's method

[maplestudent]

I thought I would post this in case it may help anyone else trying to establish slope without having much for equipment. I need to get tubing to an area that has about 30 trees, but need to go over a high spot, so I needed to keep the rate of slope to a minimum until I crossed over the high spot. After trying a number of different things, and having a lot of frustration, I arrived at this.

Equipment:

fishing rod, reel with line, lock snap swivel tied to end of line - I used only the bottom portion of the rod (had on hand)
flagging tape (about $5)
line level (had on hand - $3 to $5)
beam level (had on hand)

First, I marked a spot (with a sharpie) on the line level where the bubble would be when pitched to a 1/4" per foot slope (I marked it at the high spot of the bubble, so I would always know which end was supposed to be the high side). To do this, I first found a level surface, placed a 4 foot beam level on it, and raised one end 1". That gave me 1/4" per foot slope. I then placed the line level on top of the beam level, and marked spot where the bubble was.

In the woods, at my starting point, I wrapped the fishing line around a tree ( tree #1) at the height I want the tubing to be, and hooked the lock snap back onto the line (so it worked like a slip knot) and pulled it tight to the tree. I then snaked my way around several trees, eyeballing the height I thought it should be at (I would do about a 75 to 100 foot section at a time). At the last tree, I would wrap the fishing line around the tree once or twice, and if the tree had rough bark, I could snag the line in the edge of the bark to hold it. If it had smooth bark, I would either continue to a nearby tree that had rough bark, or wrap it around a limb a couple times and let the fishing rod dangle, which would keep the line tight (after engaging the wind-up mechanism).

Then I would place the line level on the fishing line at the midpoint between trees #1 & #2, and adjust the height of the line at tree#2 until the bubble hit the mark (note: make sure the line level is oriented in the right direction). The great thing about fishing line is that it is dynamic.....you can stretch it some and it will still pull tight when you release the stretch. Once you get the height at tree#2 where you want it, flag it with a piece of flagging tape, and move on to tree #3. Once you're done doing that section, the line is easy to wind up, move and begin a new section.

I hope someone else with minimal equipment and budget can benefit from this.

[Sandersyrup]

Great idea! Never thought of fishing line.

I set up a similar set of trees yesterday using an iPhone app called "SeeLevel" it has a clinometer that you can view slop with from tree to tree I tried to stay with a 2% slope between trees. It's probably not perfect. But I think it will work. Hoping some of the 3/16 vac will help after the line drops in elevation after my last tree.


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[lakeview maple]

That's and awesome idea if you have fairly flat or minimal slope

[markct]

I have enough trouble tangling tubing in woods! Fishing line would be a disaster! I use my 15 dollar sight level alot but do break out the laser transit at times

[Sandersyrup]

This does bring up a question. How important is slope? My trees are in an ideal 3/16 setup so I should get great vac. I read somewhere that good vac could actually syphon sap from the other side of a hill. I have maybe 1 stretch between trees that is either flat or 1% negative. I'm wondering what kind of losses I could see. Or what if I just strung all the trees without paying attention to slope at all what would happen if I'm still getting 27" Vac?


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[markct]

Its more important on mainlines to have good even slope. Laterals as long as the end is lower than the beggining is pretty much fine

[maplestudent]

My problem was getting over that high spot with the tubing as low as possible. according to my contour map, it is about 6 to 8 feet higher than my starting point (which seems about right), and about 300 feet or so away from it. First time through there flagging trees, I felt I was way higher than I needed to be. Second time through using the fishing line method, I was able to lower all the flags, the one at the high spot I lowered by about 3 feet. Some of the area beyond the high spot is about the same elevation as my starting point.....I'll still need a ladder to tap a few of the trees but certainly nowhere near as many.

By the way, don't try the fishing line method without using a rod/reel......it is a disaster to work with....trust me on this.

[Pablo]

The fishing line idea sounds ok but why not just buy a roll of string line. Don't go to a hardware store, find an industrial supply store. Good string line can be pulled real tight and comes in colours which is real visable. Now get a line level, a level that hangs on the line. Set a level at 2% slope put the line level on it see where the bubble is, repeat with the level at 5% slope. Grab a bunch of nails and run the line and put the nails into the bark enough so you can tighten the line, hang level on the line and move to the next tree. I have several 500m lines which I use for all kinds of grading work.

[Sugarmaker]

The fishing line idea sounds ok but why not just buy a roll of string line. Don't go to a hardware store, find an industrial supply store. Good string line can be pulled real tight and comes in colours which is real visable. Now get a line level, a level that hangs on the line. Set a level at 2% slope put the line level on it see where the bubble is, repeat with the level at 5% slope. Grab a bunch of nails and run the line and put the nails into the bark enough so you can tighten the line, hang level on the line and move to the next tree. I have several 500m lines which I use for all kinds of grading work.

You have something that is similar to what I use.
A lot of my groups of trees are farily level.
So I took a line level about $4.00 and attached a 5/16 plastic hook to each end. On one end the hook is lower by the correct slope. Snap the modified level on to the tubing as you go and check the bubble for level. That gives you the approximate slop required as you move up the line.
After getting the lines where I want them I mark the maples with black spray paint above and below the tubing. Then at a glance I can see if the line has moved.
As far as running down hill. Try to get as much slope as possible.
Next thing is to keep the lines tight to eliminate sags.
Regards

[maplestudent]

like I said, this is one poor man's method. I was trying to use stuff I had on hand for 2 reasons: didn't want to take the time to go to a store, and didn't want to spend money on something I may never need to use again. So for me, it was all about improvising. I'm sure there are lots of better ways to do it than the way I did it, but this worked pretty well for me and I wanted to share it in case someone else out there could put it to use.

[Sugarmaker]

like I said, this is one poor man's method. I was trying to use stuff I had on hand for 2 reasons: didn't want to take the time to go to a store, and didn't want to spend money on something I may never need to use again. So for me, it was all about improvising. I'm sure there are lots of better ways to do it than the way I did it, but this worked pretty well for me and I wanted to share it in case someone else out there could put it to use.

I liked the way you used what you had, to get the job done. That's what its all about! How did the sap flow in your system?
Regards,
Chris

[maplestudent]

there is no sap flow here (it was -17* last night) and doesn't look to flow for at least another week. it's good for me though as I still need to get more tubing installed. broke my snowshoes (both of them) this past weekend and was up to my waist in snow in some spots. very time consuming when doing it alone in this deep snow. I'm getting there though and I'll report back on how my slope worked out once it does start flowing. thanks for asking

by the way, the fishing pole allowed me to run the line over the tops of smaller trees that I hadn't cleared out yet and couldn't really walk through and gave me a clear vision of what I needed to cut away to have a clear shot from tree to tree.

[Pablo]

Once you have a string line you will find so many uses for them. Sorry to hear you broke your snowshoes, I hope you made it back to solid ground easly. If they are the older gut kind they are hard to fix, finding gut for webbing isn't easy. I have a pair of "modern" that I use for tapping, broke a traditional pair skiing on them.
In summer I keep my eye out at garage sales for snowshoes. I have about 4' of snow on the yard and more in the bush.

[CampHamp]

I'm missing something... Why don't you just put your level right on the tubing? What does the string or fishing line give you that the actual tubing can't do?

[Jebediah]

Anyone ever heard of a "water level?" Apparently you get a long length of very soft, flexible (and clear) tubing, and fill all but maybe 2 feet of it with water. Then hold up the two ends. No matter what, the two water boundaries at the two ends will be level (one versus the other)--no matter how you move them, and no matter how the middle of the tubing is laying in between. I have wondered if this could be useful for determining or establishing slope between taps. You could verify "level" versus tap #1, at tree #2, and just make sure tap #2 was a certain amount of inches below that.

[mellondome]

Anyone ever heard of a "water level?"

These don't work so well when it is -20° outside. Suddenly everything is level!
Unless you use alcohol. .. but then your distance will get smaller all the time.

[maplestudent]

Once you have a string line you will find so many uses for them. Sorry to hear you broke your snowshoes, I hope you made it back to solid ground easly. If they are the older gut kind they are hard to fix, finding gut for webbing isn't easy. I have a pair of "modern" that I use for tapping, broke a traditional pair skiing on them.
In summer I keep my eye out at garage sales for snowshoes. I have about 4' of snow on the yard and more in the bush.

Thanks Pablo. I have a couple of vintage pairs and a modern pair that is about 6 or 7 years old. The "webbing" split at the rivet on the anchor strap at the very back on both shoes, allowing the entire webbing platform to move forward and the front section of tubing to separate from the back. Stayed in the woods for several hours after that.....stuff needs to get done.

[maplestudent]

I'm missing something... Why don't you just put your level right on the tubing? What does the string or fishing line give you that the actual tubing can't do?

I did that last year with a different area and it worked fairly well. For this area, I wasn't sure to which trees I wanted to run the tubing, as the area I needed to get over at the lowest elevation possible is on the side of a hill, so the grade slopes perpendicular to the line of the tubing in addition sloping parallel to the line of tubing. So I was wrapping trees with flagging tape at the height I wanted to run the final tubing - I found it to be much easier doing it this way (this was a solo operation). The final path through the trees was not the same in some spots as the original path, because it would have been well over my head where it didn't need to be.

[maplestudent]

Anyone ever heard of a "water level?" Apparently you get a long length of very soft, flexible (and clear) tubing, and fill all but maybe 2 feet of it with water. Then hold up the two ends. No matter what, the two water boundaries at the two ends will be level (one versus the other)--no matter how you move them, and no matter how the middle of the tubing is laying in between. I have wondered if this could be useful for determining or establishing slope between taps. You could verify "level" versus tap #1, at tree #2, and just make sure tap #2 was a certain amount of inches below that.

I have heard of that. Was working by myself, in snow up to my knees, so that might have been a little tedious to pull off. With the "water level" you can determine where the level point is, but if you want to maintain a particular slope between the two end points, then you also need to know the distance between them, so you can calculate how far above the level point you need to be to achieve the target slope.

I'm not claiming this to be the best method by any stretch of the imagination, but this method worked fantastic for me.....even with the snow conditions, I established (what should be - we'll see when the sap finally runs) a 2% slope for a distance of about 600' in about 3 hours by myself. it's light, easy to wind up and move to the next section.

Later I put the tubing up (another solo operation) in about 1.5 hours (and that includes dealing with an additional foot of snow in the path I had already made).

[hogisland42]

Hope your water doesn't freeze!