GoldyCon
03-03-2017, 08:48 AM
Well I finally got it finished. First off a big thanks to the forum for answering all my questions during this build. This is my first season collecting sap and I knew I wanted to collect about 40 taps to feed my wife's maple addiction so I started off my finding a free fuel oil tank on craigslist.
15836
I have never worked with metal before, ever, so it took me a long time to get the tank cut. In the end I used a reciprocating saw instead of a grinder cause I was worried about igniting the fuel oil. Once I had it opened I burned it clean and found out that fuel oil does not like to burn.
I borrowed a welder for this build and watched some YouTube videos, with my newfound confidence I went to the garage and spent the next hour trying to get a weld. Turns out a good ground is important. Once I got that out of the way everything's my worked great. I even got my wife into welding, she loved it!
One thing I noticed during my many hours of YouTube fuel oil evaporator videos is people often wished they had room for one more steam pan or an extra foot for a bigger pan. I figured I would completely cut off the top of the 2x5 and cram as many pans in there as I could. I wanted to do this build pretty cheap so I went with steam pans instead of flat pans for the cost saving.
1583815839
I tested it out yesterday and it beat my expectations. I boiled 15g of sap in 3 hrs (including startup and newbie delays) using 4 of the 6 pans so when I am running full pans with the leaf blower I expect to get a solid 10gph+. I was hoping for 8 so I'm thrilled.
15840
15836
I have never worked with metal before, ever, so it took me a long time to get the tank cut. In the end I used a reciprocating saw instead of a grinder cause I was worried about igniting the fuel oil. Once I had it opened I burned it clean and found out that fuel oil does not like to burn.
I borrowed a welder for this build and watched some YouTube videos, with my newfound confidence I went to the garage and spent the next hour trying to get a weld. Turns out a good ground is important. Once I got that out of the way everything's my worked great. I even got my wife into welding, she loved it!
One thing I noticed during my many hours of YouTube fuel oil evaporator videos is people often wished they had room for one more steam pan or an extra foot for a bigger pan. I figured I would completely cut off the top of the 2x5 and cram as many pans in there as I could. I wanted to do this build pretty cheap so I went with steam pans instead of flat pans for the cost saving.
1583815839
I tested it out yesterday and it beat my expectations. I boiled 15g of sap in 3 hrs (including startup and newbie delays) using 4 of the 6 pans so when I am running full pans with the leaf blower I expect to get a solid 10gph+. I was hoping for 8 so I'm thrilled.
15840