Haynes Forest Products
04-05-2009, 10:02 PM
Well just when things were running along at full blast Wife was back in Colorado and my main friend/helper was back home for a few days I did the unthinkable. I was just back from picking up sap and started the Evaporator up opened the coupla and sat a watched it get up to speed and went out to fill tanks and switch the transfer pump. Went back in things were working fine. Checked the fill tank, foam OK, 3 points away from syrup and all is well so I went out and washed out a tank when I smelled something burning.......................looked up at the coupla flue stack area on the outside no fire ran inside and looked up and no flames then I saw the two finish pans were fully on fire. Hit the switch and grabed the hose and started putting the flames out. After I scraped the 4" of black carbon crap from the bottom and sides I saw what I can only discribe as what looked like the bottom of a 10 year old 55 gallon burn barrel. The warping was 2-3" and the sides were pushed out 1" in areas. I dont think my 8 year old jumping up and down inside the pans could do that much damage.
I found what I can only describe as a hillbilly with a rock throwing sandblaster that was shooting sand 50 ft away and $50 later I was off to a friend who had a flat cement floor and a rubber mallet and we started by beating it from the bottom in and then putting them on the cement floor and beating them as flat as possible. I got them within 3/8 to 1/2 and scrubbed the round rubber marks out and went back to boiling.
It is unbelievable what I did to that set of pans and they still put out 100 gallons of syrup that sold at grade A price. I already put down $200 for my 2 new pans. STUPID STUPID STUPID. AS I WAS SPRAYING DOWN THE PANS I NOTICED THE CLOSED VALVE FROM THE FLUE PAN. I can say from experiance that Waterloo Small makes a hell of a set of pans.
I found what I can only describe as a hillbilly with a rock throwing sandblaster that was shooting sand 50 ft away and $50 later I was off to a friend who had a flat cement floor and a rubber mallet and we started by beating it from the bottom in and then putting them on the cement floor and beating them as flat as possible. I got them within 3/8 to 1/2 and scrubbed the round rubber marks out and went back to boiling.
It is unbelievable what I did to that set of pans and they still put out 100 gallons of syrup that sold at grade A price. I already put down $200 for my 2 new pans. STUPID STUPID STUPID. AS I WAS SPRAYING DOWN THE PANS I NOTICED THE CLOSED VALVE FROM THE FLUE PAN. I can say from experiance that Waterloo Small makes a hell of a set of pans.