Juice barrel / overflow

[SUGARSMITH]

I wa considering using a 55 gallon juice barrel, plastic for a moisture trap. I would simply put one line in and one line out and any overflow would drop into the barrel. My concern is whether the plastic juice barrel would hold uo to 20-25 " of mercury ? Also what size and type thread is a standard barrel fitting ?

[maplehound]

Sugarsmith,
I don't know what kind of links these are suposed to be but my anti virus puts up a major alert with them.

[SUGARSMITH]

My apologies, I have no Idea what this is from or where the links are coming from but dont try to open them !!!! I will try to clear it up before I make another posting

[maplehound]

maybe kim can get them removed from the postings

[HanginAround]

My virus scanner doesn't hit on them, but the links appear dead to me.

Sugarsmith, you can edit the posts yourself... or did you try that? Hit the Edit botton on the lower left of the post, then Save when you are done.

[SUGARSMITH]

hopefully I am clean now, nope

[mapleman3]

I believe you would implode a juice barrel... 20" vac is a lot of neg. pressure

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

post edited

[SUGARSMITH]

thats an easy answer, they are free, and convenient and would be simple to install.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Oh- I wasn't sure.

[brookledge]

I would think that the vacuum will implode the barrel. But if you have time and they are free try one to see if it will hold up.
Keith

[lmathews]

I think it is a good idea.If the sap getts in the barrel you could still collect the sap.A syrup barrel would be better.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

post edited

[SUGARSMITH]

]






I think you are correct. However I think it will go higher than 3-5". A person can pull that much with a tube and their lungs. I dont thin I can implode a juice barrel with my lungs. At this point I am going to see what happens as I dont have a lot of time to play around with this. I will however see at what point it implodes and report back. Also I am going with a calculatd risk that it will not implode to a volume of zero and will still offer som volume for an overflow. It will look silly having an oversized looking crumpled up beer can for an overflow.
It would be great if it didnt implode however. With a 2 inch rubber ball, it would be the perfect releaser/collector for areas that cannot support the purchase of a single releaser. You know small bushes such as 75-100 taps.

[802maple]

I have money on the imploding of the barrel, my bet is it will collapse in less than 10 seconds, maybe 5, keep us posted.

[802maple]

Now moving from being a wise a##hole, my experience with a small plastic norwesco tank was that it flattened before I could get the switch shut off, somewhere around 3 to 8 seconds.. The only barrel that I have seen that would hold up was the old galvanized ones that were used for syrup. After the great norwesco mishap I tried the black steel one way barrels with epoxy linings and it lasted about 15 seconds.

[SUGARSMITH]

So 802, you have tried this?

[802maple]

I have not tried it with a juice barrel but have tried the much stronger plastic Norwesco tank and it flattened before the pump got up to 5 inches on the guage. And I also tried it with light weight steel barrels with the same result only maybe 10 to 12 inches of vacuum

[maple flats]

Not sure what the thread is, a steel bbl is iron pipe thread but I don't think plastic is. If you want something to stand up to the vac I think you need some large PVC pipe or similar. If you have access to much smaller bbls free you might try that, they would have less surface area, but might be lighter gauge also. To test one just plumb the vac pump to a bbl and see if it implodes or collapses. It likely will.

[danno]

Here's a stupid question, but I've always wondered why vacuum does not collapse tubing? That 100 psi waterpipe is not very heavy.

[brookledge]

The surface area of the black plastic pipe is small compared to the juice barrell. The larger the diameter of the item the stronger the walls need to be.
Keith

[SUGARSMITH]

Well it worked as well as all of you thought it would. around 7" folded right up. it did however, serve its purpose as an overflow in that there is still area inside for sap if necessary. I will have to figure out something for next year.

[lmathews]

Try using an old galv house prassure tank.They make them in diff. sizes.

[SUGARSMITH]

Beer keg is perfect. If only I could get a 55 gallon one that needs to be emptied