home made flue pan

[doop]

I let my buddy run my evaporator this year and he managed to destroy my pans. I was hoping to get new ones eventually anyway as they were English tin. So my question is this. I'm a carpenter and we have a heavy duty sheet metal press back at the shop and was wondering if you think it would be possible to bend 8 inch flues with it? I was thinking 1 inch between flues. Any advice is welcome.

[Big_Eddy]

It all depends on what you have for a press / brake to bend the stainless. A typical sheet metal brake is not designed to make a deep and narrow flue, but it is simple enough to do if you build purpose specific tooling. Welding up the stainless is also critical. You need a good TIG weldor, experienced at thin stainless.

Lots of threads on here about making flue pans. Try a search in the homemade forum.

[doop]

Ok so I ended up having my flue pan bent up at a fab shop, but they didn't have anyone that could tig. 22 gauge s.s. couldn't find anyone else either. The friend who burnt my pans brother in law is a structural welder and says he can do it,but I'm not sure I wanna risk my investment. Besides he wants to trade me putting up a building for him welding the pans. I don't know if I like that trade. So I'm pretty proficient at soldering and just ordered some stay brite 8 and their flux and am planning on soldering it. Does anybody wanna try to talk me out of it. Or have any suggestions? Thanks.

[Big_Eddy]

Let's address the friend first. Structural welding and thin stainless are to welding like orthopedics and brain surgery are to medicine. Give him 10-20 scraps of 22ga and ask him to weld them into a mini staircase before you let him near your pan. He might surprise you, but if he hasn't had experience at it, your pan isn't where you want him to learn.

If you are going to solder it, then you will want to take a different approach to the joints. Welding a corner, you butt the two edges together, then fuse them. Soldering, you want an overlapping joint and you use the solder to seal between the overlapping pieces. Depending on how your pan was formed, you might need to adjust some of the end caps etc.

Folks on here have had lots of experience soldering stainless. I'm not one of them, so can't give good advice on the process.

[WMF]

Like Big Eddy said the joint design is different for a good soldered flue pan and the end of the pan that sees the fire and the poker and the wood chunks thrown at it takes a beating and should be reinforced with more than just a simple butt joint with a filet of solder if durability is wanted.
Most homemade pans I see are lacking high enough sides and a durable top rim design that stiffens the whole pan when moved. If a soldered pan flexes much it will come apart unless the joints are locked together before soldering.
Welded pans are simpler to make and are far more durable. You have lots of time to find a precision welder or maybe the guy who is the heavy welder wants to hone his skills at fine welding and back purging if you buy him some argon and a .040 tungsten setup for his tig.

[bmbmkr]

Doop, how'd your pan turnout? Any advice for someone wanting to do the same thing you are?

[doop]

Still working on it, I was going to wait til fall to finish it up, but had rotator cuff surgery in late October. I'm healed up for the most part now and don't go back to work for a couple more weeks so I'll be on it daily now. My advice is to price out new pan and any labor you would pay for if you do it yourself. Kinda wishing I would have shopped around, only problem is there is no maple supply vendors anywhere near me, and nothing but small hobby pans on Craigslist.

[jmayerl]

There is a CDL dealer in Aitkin.

[Sugarmaker]

doop,
making your own pan is not a easy task. I wish you luck! I built a crude steamaway, took me two years off and on! Lots of details in these custom sap boiling systems. You have the old pans for patterns, so you can see the details of the soldered joints.
I would recommend welded pans vs soldered. But I cant tig weld. So you have to do what your pocketbook is comfortable with.
I would not build the building for the friend till you see him weld some thin stainless together as mentioned.
Don't let friends boil on your rig! Burn them up your self then you don't have anyone else to blame!:)
Hope the arm is doing good.
Regards,
Chris

[doop]

Ok the pan is being welded up now. I've got another question. What diameter for the ports to connect flue pan to syrup pan, and do you need the box that the pipe connects to on syrup pan? Thanks

[psparr]

Go with 1" or bigger.
The box isn't necessary.