Pan a bit short?

[steve J]

I want to buy a leader 2x4 supreme pan but it turns out the width is true 24” but the length is 47” thus if placed perfectly it will catch rails by 1/4 inch on the ends. My sugar house has wood floor I am a bit nervous I might have a lot of sparks flying around. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I really don’t understand Leader sometimes.

[Kbrooks80]

Use pan gasket material to fill the gap and seal the pan to the arch.

[maple flats]

1/4" is all you want on the rails, with less you have more bottom that gets almost no heat. However, that just shows that Leader is not very close when a pan tag gives the size.
That caused problems for me when I bought my new pans from Thor (in Quebec). I believed the tags on the old Leader pans and ordered a flue pan and syrup pan for the same total but when I got my new pans they were too long for the Leader Arch. The old pans had a 1" thick ceramic insulation between them and I had about 3/4" to spare at the back. The new pans only had a 1/4" gasket between them and they were 1.5" too long. I had to remove the base stack collar and make a new one that was 1.5" shorter from front to back on the arch. My old pans were gone so I couldn't measure them, but I measured the Thor pans, they were exactly as stated (and as ordered). The Leader pans had to be about 2.25" shorter in total length between the 2.

[sugarmangraham]

I noticed that same thing with the Leader Supreme 2x4 pan I bought. When I measured it length wise I came up with 47" too. WTF Leader?! Why are they allowed to advertise and sell it as a 2x4 when it doesn't meet those dimensions? Is it kind of like how lumber is sold? Whatever happened to truth in advertising? Or is that an oxymoron? I am going to do what kbrook80 suggested.

[steve J]

I have had issues with Leader from an operational side since I started playing with sap. I think their potential is far greater than they will ever obtain because they simply do not have a leading edge management team that it takes!