Test fired the homemade today.

[LittleGuy]

Fired up the homemade contraption to see how it would work.

As soon as I bled the line, wooosh, fire. :)

shut it down and put the pan on top.
Refired with 8 gallons of water in the pan. Pan was not leveled so couldn't get a good even boil. 2" at the back about 3" at the front.

Within 3 min had the back 2 sections at a boil, within10 min the whole thing was cooking. The front section didn't seem to boil as hard, but I figured this was because of the uneven water level.

Here's a shot 4 min into the testfire.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/FishingFreak/DSC01544.jpg

Still need to level it and add the stack.
But other than that, Bring on the sap.

Going to get rid of the 7/16 steel spouts and go with drop lines into buckets.

Hopfully have them ready for the first trees.
Should still have a couple weeks before we get going up here.

[325abn]

Nice! What are you running for a nozzle? I am using a 1.5 @ 70. Thinking of going to a 2.

[LittleGuy]

325abn
I've got a 1.25 in now going to bump up to a 1.75 and try that. But first I'm going to put the stack on and play with the flue, to see how that affects it before I change the nozzle.

[Homestead Maple]

I think your right about the two weeks. I would think you have the same amount of snow as we have here in the woods, say 3 feet and it's going to take some warmer weather to get the trees thawed out to run any where decent. The temp here today was around 28 for a high and it probably wasn't any warmer where you are. I'm thinking more like 3 weeks.

Your pan looks a lot nicer than the first one I ever tried. I used an old french fry fryolater pan. it was stainless with something like flues where the gas flame passed through. That's a good idea you have there for a small oil fired rig and sounds like you'll have a good boil.

[LittleGuy]

Homestead
We might have 2ft here. The snow always seems to hit just north, or just south of use. Went through 1 of my bushes after the last snowfall, not all that bad for walking.

I made this arch for this pan, but the top rail is only bolted to the main side rails. Made it this way so when I get my new pans I can extend the arch 2ft, and raise, or drop the inside, to accomadate either a raised or drop flue pan.
The stack plate at the back can also be removed when it's time to extend the arch.