another evaporator

[tessiersfarm]

I am so excited I can hardley wait til sap starts flowing.

I am under construction of a 27" x 76" evaporator. Self designed and built mostly from materials I had and or salvaged from jobs that I work on.

The Arch is salvaged steel from an old steel gang box that was discarded because the top was ripped off. It has a 24" fire box that is lined with refractory liner salvaged from a job. I will replace it with fire brick when it fails. The door is an airtight design that I copied from a boiler. It has forced air through a grate out of a toothpick factory that a friend of mine gave me. Air is supplied by a leaf blower I got at an auction for $.50. Total cost of arch $.50 plus welding supplies and time

I did have to buy the stainless sheet for the rear pan, which is 48" long and flued, although not quite as drasticly as factory ones. I ended up with 78" of boiling surface in a 27" wide pan. All bending and welding of my pans has been or will be done at the company where I work for little or no charge. The stainless for the front pan and float pan was salvaged. I bought the stainless pipe fittings including union and ball valve for between the pans. Total cost of pans is $287.00

I do still have a few things to do but It is coming pretty good and I have my old 27" x 40" barrel evaporator advertised for $500.00. Should be able to break even I hope. This picture is not that great but my wife doesn't trust me with her camera in the shop so I am at the mercy of a camera phone.

[Bucket Head]

It looks good! And the price was right too.

Were there a lot of other bidders for the leaf blower? LOL.

Its good that you have "more room" for additional pans. In the future you might want to get a set of factory made pans. It looks like you would have room for them too.

Why is it the women actually fear what happens out in our garages, shops, and sometimes sugarhouses? Come on, there's no reason for concern...

Good luck with the evaporator!

Steve

[Gary R]

That's looking real nice. It will be great to hear how your flue pan works and what kind of gph you get.

[tessiersfarm]

My old evaporator went into uncle henrey's (a local classifieds) today and I have had several calls this evening. Real Prommising 2 are coming to look at it sat.

[Clan Delaney]

I don't know whether I'm more impressed with your beautiful homemade arch or your workspace. Both look great!

[tessiersfarm]

Workspace is kind of a family shop so to speak. I used to run a construction company out of it but now it is just my father, I and 4 brothers. 32x48 main shop heated with wood to 50 or so depending on how father feels and 26x48 cold this time of year. Set up for a little of everything, wood, steel, mechanic, ect.

[tessiersfarm]

Just got home from work where one of our welders welded my pans for me today. He did an awsome job and I had to argue with him to take some money. They look great.

[brookledge]

Looks good. Now you need some sap to break them in.
Keith

[ronr]

Wow looks great. What thickness of stainless did you use in the rear pan? Any chance of some close ups of the inside and outside of the flues? What did you use for fittings where they weld on to the sides of the pans.

That is a great looking rig and should offer some serious production with the flue pan.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

How big is the evaporator and does the rear pan have any flues??

[benchmark]

by the first post it lookes like its 27" x 76" with a 48" rear flued pan??
looks really nice anyway A+++. some close ups would be nice.

[tessiersfarm]

It is 27" wide and 76" long Arch. Arch was built out of 1/8" plate steel salvaged out of some old work box's. The arch is lined with some refractory liner I salvaged from a job, although I don't think it will last but I can replace it with bricks when money allows. Rear pan is 48" long and front is 28". Rear pan was designed around the brake at the fabrication shop at the construction company where I work. It is 20 guage stainless with flues 4" deep and 3/4" wide on the flat but they taper aonther 3/4" between them because of the limitations of our brake. It has 78" of pan surface across the 27" arch. A welder at work did all of the welding. We welded on 3/4" half couplings where I needed penetrations and all of the piping is 316 stainless. There is a union and ball valve between front and back pans so they can be isolated and seperated. All of the pipe fittings came from a wholesaler that we built several buildings for and they gave me awsome pricing. $75 for all fittings including 2 ball valves and the union. I have a total of $387.00 in the whole unit and I have an offer on my old evaporator of $300, and several more appointments to show it today. I will try to get more pics today.

[TapME]

How close to the bottom of the pans are the fittings from pan to pan? I am looking at doing the same in building a 3x12 arch and getting off concrete blocks. The setup looks great and the price is right.

[tessiersfarm]

The nipple in the rear pan is 1 1/2" over the flues to keep the sap at that level. The nipple in the front is at 3 1/2" because of the difference in pan heights. I hope they work out because that is one of the things I did not research enough and kind of did on the run so to speak. I am kind of stressed about it but I will see soon enogh if it works out. It is kind of a raised and drop flue combination and the third picture is from inside looking at the bottom of the flues. The space is sized to equal an 8" flue opening.

[jtthibodeau]

I just love the ingenuity of the posters here. There is nothing like down home R and D. Nice job tessiersfarm!

[Dennis H.]

Sort of a Raised/Drop Flue? Hey didn't Leader just come out with some thing like that. The Max. Leader makes it sound like some thing special, and you did it your self.

That is so cool, those guys at your shop did an awsome job. 78" of surface area in a 27" space, that is great. You should have some good evaporation rate.

Let us know how the thing boils when the time comes.

[TapME]

you got a welder in the shop. tell him he knows his business.

[xulgiy]

What did he use to weld with?? I'd like to know the details on that. Great job!! Looks like he mig welded it.

[tessiersfarm]

Mig Welder with 308 wire .025 and stainlessshield gas. We are a construction company and this is the first sap pan out of that shop. The stainless welders there weld interior gutter and roof curbs for the most part. The red you see is a penetrating dye to check for leaks. Three days later I am still red. The pan was bent on our brake which is programable and has automatic stops. I was very fortunate that some of our top mechanics actively took part in my personal project and helped out for little or no pay. We bent a test piece to se what we could fit under the brake head and then designed a pan from there. I was able to make it 27" wide and get the entire pan from a 4x8 sheet with no long welds, which it turns out would have been easier than the ends. The flat pan was pretty easy although our finger brake could only bend the ends up 60 deg or so because of the depth of the pan.

[xulgiy]

Sorry for all of the questions but I just plasma cut flue drop slots into my 18 ga flat pans in order to put flues in. We had the same problem with the brake and ended up bending 3 60 degree angles to get a 1" by 7" flue. I have a total of 6 flues in place and tacked in with the tig. The flues have a 3/8" flange lap joint to the inside of the bottom, and when I started to tig them I had all sorts of burn on the leading edge of the flange. Some spots don't lay flat to the bottom so there is a tiny gap that needs to be filled. After a frustrating hour or so, My brother suggested we try to mig it. After looking at your pans....we just may do that. Did your welder skip weld? lay individual spots? or just go to town?

Thanks!

[xulgiy]

One more question... How did you make the flue stack? I have been trying to find a pattern for the square to round bends.

Thanks again...

[tessiersfarm]

First our welder tacked bottom and top of all the flues on both ends to keep them on module and flat to the bottom. The he welded all the tops and bottoms, then all of one side, then all of the other side. Then we put the dye to it. Every leak (7 or so in 30' of seam) was in a lap of the welds. Interestingly enough when we put the water to it we still had 2 leaks with dye and no water came through in about 10 min or so.

The flue stack I made myself. I started with 1/8" plate which I laid up to form a point 8 3/8" long (the diameter of the stack) I then set my 8" steel pipe down on and cut out the point of the plate until the pipe fit inside snugly. Then I traced the plate location onto the pipe and cut away the excess inside. Then welded the 8" pipe into the plate. When I started I had my doubts weather or not it would look decent but after a little grinding and paint it almost looks presentable. It is not as tall as most factory stack bases but it is much heavies metal and mine is built into the arch.

I never had any drawing or plans through this entire process. I just had a bunch of ideas in my head and commenced to cutting and welding with misc parts and pieces I had. It was not until I had the arch about ready to brick that I really thought to myself "hey this might turn into something". I had plans to build flat pans from some old stainless sheets I had but after seeing the arch turn out as good as it did I decided it would be too bad to put a bunch of junk on top. After selling my old evaporator, which I also built out of scar including the pans, I have under $100.00 in the new one so I guess I did not get hurt too bad.

[tessiersfarm]

Just sold my old evaporator brings my cost down to $120.00 or so for the the new 27x76. Wish more of my deals went this smooth.