Homemade pan gauge and price?

[skillet]

Just had a friend weld up two more 19"X24" flat pans. This will expand my setup to 19"X 94" with another 19"X 11" finish pan. The finish pan is a steam pan setting on a 1/4" piece of steel over my fire box. I paid 130$ for the two 24" pans which are 16 guage stainless. They are 6"s deep with 1" lip on three sides to set on my dry stacked block arch. The other pans are 10",15",21"s. Is 16 guage steel to heavy for heat transfer? Did i get a good deal on these pans? Not sure what guage steel evaporators are? Any idea what kind of evaporation rate i will get?
How much room should i keep between my pans and the sand on the bottom of the arch? Last year i had about 8"s which might be too much. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks

skillet

[Cardigan99]

Skillet,
if they're stainless pans then I'd say the price was about right. Stainless has been coming down in price for a few months (though you wouldn't know it with the cost of new pans). Two years ago I had a 27 x 54 20ga stainless flat pan made for me and it cost well over $300. Most of the posts I've read on here say 20ga for thickness is best for heat transfer without going too thin. As far as the distance from your sand to the bottom of the pan, I'd say get as close as you can without choking your air flow (the space between the sand and the pan should be at something close to the area of your smoke stack. Last couple of years we ran a barrel evaporator with a little over inch distance from the brick to the bottom of the sap section of the pan so there was about 36 sq inches of space vs an 8 inch stack pipe (about 25 inches).

Todd

[markct]

sure sounds like a good price to me, havent priced stainless recently but in 16 gauge i think that just barely covers the material cost at that price. and a tig welder isnt a cheap machine thats why ya dont see one in every backyard shop, well i got one but just cause its old and only cost 100 bucks, altho by the time i got the stuff to go with it i had over 400 into that

[Haynes Forest Products]

When it comes to flat pans you need a little smaller guage just to keep it rigid. When you have the flues and dividers they all add strenth and so thinner works out OK.

[Rockingham Maple]

On my 2' x 4' I used 18 Ga., The pan is 8.5 inches deep with dividers for strength. I wanted to use 20 Ga. 304 stainless but the welding company that I used couldn't seem to get it to stop burning through and warping.

So they told me to go with 304 SS 18 Ga. and they could do a better job. The metal is a perfect thickness with plenty of strenght for whatever you want to put on top of it. The pan is water tight and not at all pretty. Does it work? Yes but next time I think that I might try 16 Ga. or a better welding company.

I did come out with 2 items on the plus side of this venture though! 1st I got it for cheap ($200 for metal, labor and the welding), and 2nd I can scorch the crap out of the pan and no one will know because it is already warped!