Purple line

[argohauler]

I have some purple sap line that was made in St. Albans, Vermont and another city. I think it said sap flow on it and it had 95 on it as well, probably the year produced.

Is that line the semi ridgid kind? It sure doesn't stretch very well. On my gravity setup I have it so there is next to no sag between trees and it's hard to get it sag free.

Just wondering as I was looking at a chunk of it yesterday. I got it with a bunch of other line that we tore out of an ex producers bush back in 2001.

He had an excellent bush, 4000 taps, young trees, but he had a bad last day of making syrup. Shanty burnt down when the wood chips on the elevator caught fire back to where they were being stored and burned the whole thing up.

[maplecrest]

i am suprised that the tubing it not brittle and breaking. that is pvc tubing and is not semi ridgid. heats the sap right up . that is why you have ropey sap. time for new tubing

[PerryW]

I have quite a bit of the dark purple, ribbed blue, green, even some clear/black and it's all considered non-rigid. Most of this tubing is 20 years (or more) old and as long as sap flows in it, I keep using it. I gradually replace the brittle stiff with other used tubing I've scrounged over the years and kept under cover.

As it stretches out and gets smaller, I move it up the hill toward the beginning of the laterals or use it for drops. Gradually replacing the lower laterals with rigid.

[argohauler]

Was pulling the taps on the lines today and come to the purple line again. It's Lamb's natural flow Rutland and St. Albans Vermont 95. Anyways hard to stretch. Got some light green with Atkinson's on it that is hard to stretch as well. I got one that I call rubber line. It's a corn flower blue and that stuff will stretch for miles, if it doesn't pull a connection apart first.

[sapman]

That Lamb tubing started out being made in Bernhard's Bay, NY, not too far from me. As I understand it, Bob Lamb was one of the first inventors of sap tubing, and Leader bought him out in the early 90's or so. That was the tubing I started out with, even had some made in NY. But it was way inferior to what we have available today.

Tim

[ennismaple]

We've still got a few pieces of that crappy purple Lamb tubing kicking around. It's gotta be the worst for stretching and it gets so thin after a while I don't know how sap ever gets through it! By next season all ours will be replaced.

[PerryW]

I still have a lot of the dark purple Lamb. For some reason it gets seems to get covered with crud. That in combination with it's dark color makes it difficult to see if the sap is running.

I have a lot of the U.S. Maple Green and ever the older Berliner Green too. I always kind of liked that tubing. Didn't seem to sag as much as the others.

I still think the gravity laterals work better with the smaller diameter flexible tubing. When I replace some of these laterals with the bigger diameter Rigid; they no longer fIll the pipe with columns of sap and therefore generate no natural vacuum.