Painting Mainlines White

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

post edited?...Kevin

[sugaring42long]

I have painted most of my mainlines white. I use the best exterior latex you can buy like Dutch Boy. Seems to last 3 to 4 years.
I use latex mainly for the easy clean-up as I am usually covered in paint at the end of the day. I have used brushes, rollers, cotton gloves and a portable wagner power-painter. The glove and wagner work best for me. How much mainline do you have to paint?

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[WF MASON]

I was at a customers sugarhouse in Warren , NH last spring, he has one mile of main line he'd painted white , said he'd used a cotton glove to do it,
he also said , his mainline was waterline and someone was comming out with a line that was very smooth inside made for sap and he was going to switch to that this season.

[Al]

O.K. since I don't run lines I don't know the answer to that one. So why do you paint your main line white? :? Just curious. :D

[chipa]

painting the mainlines white helps keep the sap cooler

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Never painted my mainlines. Is it worth the effort as I only have aprox 800' and could paint them all in probably an hour and are the benefits noticable.

I have done a lot of painting over the years and I would recommend the glove technique for painting something like that as I have used it before for other similar items.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[syrupmaker]

Never painted our mainlines but i would have to agree with Lobstafari,latex will peel like badly sunburned skin. I have used the krylon on plastic outdoor chairs and it holds up really well on the smooth finish.

Rick

[treefinder]

i also leave mine black. i don't see the reason to paint. i figure that if the sun is hot enough to spoil sap then that means that its way above freezing and the season is just about over.i like it because it seems to unthaw the lines alot easier but not enough to spoil sap ..





4x12 leader converted to oil
1,450 on tubing
farmall A
and wife and three kids to gather

[powerdub]

Never painted my main line white either........Wait a minute, the darn thing is white anyway. 2" schedule 40 PVC. I like to be on the unconventional side you know.

[HanginAround]

A lot depends on whether your lines are shaded a bit in the woods or exposed to the sun and how long they are. Most around here are left black, sap temps aren't as big an issue here as in warmer climes.

[Pete33Vt]

Just a little tidbit. Last season I was at one sugarhouse. It was in the mid 30s, sap was running good, main line runs down the mountain throught alot of hemlock groves so its shaded alot. The sap was coming out of the line and into the tank at 70 degrees!!! All my main lines are white.

Just my tidbit
Pete

[maplehound]

black main line or pump lines are a definite no no in the area that i am in. tey heat the sap up even in the shaded woods.

[Father & Son]

Is white water line available at a similar price to black and who carries it or does everyone paint the black kind white?

Jim

[HanginAround]

You can get white mainline from Lapierre, higher priced, but I don't know by how much.

[Fred Henderson]

Is white water line available at a similar price to black and who carries it or does everyone paint the black kind white?

Jim


There is a white water line made by Pex tubing, cost I do not know.

[maplehound]

There is a company that sells white water line but I don't know who they are. I had a dealer get some for me in a round about way so I couldn't figure out who ws actually sellling it. I won't ever buy it again though. It was totally white not grey like we buy from the maple dealers. The line I bought was slightly thinner and had no UV protection. Last year just before the start of the season we found the line was split in several places. The more we repaired the more split. So we changed it out for the grey dtuff yu get from the maple dealers. The whtie pipe we replaced was so brittle that we couldn't even take it down without it breaking and cracking. This pipe was only about 3 years old and had been in the direct sun the whole time. I still have a 500 ft. piece of it in the woods that seems to be holding up for now but will be replaced for next year.

[802maple]

Our lines are long and not shaded from the woods to the sugarhouse and I have seen our sap come out at 90 degrees on sunny forty degree days when they were black but when we switched to white there was a huge difference

[HanginAround]

If you have enough vacuum, enough distance, and enough heat, you can have syrup flow into your camp, get rid of the evap 8O 8O :D :D

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[MASSEY JACK]

I attended a couple of tubing and vacuum sessions at the Maple conference that were put on by Glen Goodrich. He said to put the wire ties on your mainline with the twist on the bottom so if you want to paint it will be much easier. He said to use the cheapest white latex you can find. He also recommended to put a latex glove on and then a cotton glove and just dip it in the paint and walk along the lines with the glove. Seems like a fast and cheap solution.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[royalmaple]

Isn't that wind burn while tapping. Maybe not this year though :?

[ennismaple]

Does anyone paint their green mainline? People have only mentioned the black water line here but I assume that the green stuff still attracts heat.

I can imagine the look I'll get from the boss (Dad) when I tell him I want a bucket of paint and some rubber gloves! 8O

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Beth]

I have had problems with warm, spoiling sap the last few years, and thought it would be a great idea to paint my mainline, since it's quite long and gets alot of sun in some sections. So, yesterday was nice and sunny here, and I bought a gallon of oil-based high-gloss exterior house paint from Big Lots for only 14.99, and a car wash mitt too.

It took about 3 hours to do 1800' of 3/4", and actually went of fairly well. I had a yellow rubber glove on under the mitt which never even ripped (!) which was amazing. I coated the whole pipe, not just the top, but if I hung new line I'd definately try to keep the wire-tie knot on the bottom. By the time I was done, the mitt was almost bald from rubbing all the fuzzies off on the knots!

[maplehound]

I hope you sanded the line lightly, It would help the paint stick. If you didn't then it will probably flack off over the next couple years.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[sweetwoodmaple]

Gotta love the Global Warming crowd. We've been keeping temperature records for how long? A few hundred years? A mere pin prick in time.

Remember...back in the 50's it was the Global Cooling scare.

Kinda like Coffee...every 20 years or so it oscillates from being Healthy to Killing you tomorrow.

Haven't posted in a while, so figured I'd start a fire and run! :twisted:

[markcasper]

Couldn't agree with you more sweetwood! Most all of the "evolutionist's" believe in global warming and climate change. If one believes the bible, in which I do, you find that theres always been natural disasters. There will be more of them, droughts, floods, earthquakes, blizzards,...etc. And even more as judgment day and the coming of the Lord draws closer.

Most weather records date back to only the 1880's-90's in my area. So how can one say its warming up when you don't know the previous 1800= years?

Why was the oil, gas and coal put beneath the earth's surface? To ponder and wonder its demise??? Maybe I could ride my bike to work tonight and gain an extra day from gloabl warming. This earth will not last forever, it will pass away at some time, hence if global warming is occurring, I believe that there is someone else in charge. Mark

[forester1]

I think part of the evidence comes from drilling deep into the ice of antarctica. Somehow they can tell what the climate was like back thousands of years. Oil and coal is compressed plant matter from the dinosaur age and before. That's why it is called fossil fuel.

[MASSEY JACK]

This is amazing! All this information just from a question about putting white paint on black mainlines..... :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I watch the weather channel local on the 8's in the mornings and I am amazed that many of the record high temps for this time of year were in between 1910 and 1920. Like today, the record was 70 degrees in 1918. Bet they were thanking God for the warm weather and going about their business like always. Not nearly as much mad science back then. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Beth]

Nope, didn't sand first. Sanding around well over a thousand ties and THEN painting just wasn't going to happen. I figure I can re-paint the line a few times for the time it would take just to sand. Plus, I went on the (probably wrong) assumption that oil-based paint would stick better. Time will tell. Sure looks pretty now, though!

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[maple flats]

At one time I was going to paint my main lines and someone said to use a "painter's mitt". I never checked to find a source for this. As far as latex pealing try taking a piece of med course grit sand paper and quickly rough it up. Then use latex and the mitt. I was told this mitt held paint better and then just walk along just hitting the top half in 1 pass only. I will try it someday after I get my act together better.

[Sugarmaker]

Sweetwood,
Where have you been! missed you at he meeting. Do you have all that tubing system ready to go? Probably no snow down south? Just sold my last 1/2 gallon of 2006 syrup tonight. Hoping we get the chance to make some more in several weeks.
Regards,
Chris