Anyone ever heard of/seen either of these?

[DS Maple]

Just curious if anyone was familiar with evaporators made by Vermont Farm Machine Co. out of Bellows Falls, VT or True and Blanchard out of Newport, VT. We have evaporator fronts from both of these manufacturers and are interested in learning more about them. Also the True and Blanchard 24" front is being made into a 2x6 to sell if anyone is interested for next year.

[Dill]

Well the other night on "Antiques Roadshow" they had a dog treadmill from the same company in Bellow's Falls VT. That's all I have though.

[farmall h]

dsmaple, you got those from my back yard!! Ah-ha! Just kidding. Hey, the Newport Co. or at least the town of Newport is 20 miles away from me. Looks mighty old. The Bellows Fall, Vt one is quite ornate. :o Maybe one of my fellow Southern VT'ers knows about that one. I will inquire about the Newport arch front....

[maple flats]

Never heard of them, but Bellows Falls has a nice little diner in an old trolley car and they of course serve real maple syrup. It is called the Miss Bellows Falls Diner if my memory serves me correctly.

[Amber Gold]

The Blanchard one looks a lot like my Grimm front, just smaller.

[nhmaple48]

True+Blanchard made a raised flue drop as well as a drop flue with tapered flues.Vt.Farm Machine bought them out in the early 20's I believe.I have lit. on both.

[maplwrks]

It's shame to take those nice old arch fronts and make them into working rigs---they should be hanging in someones sugarhouse!

[gator330]

Mike,
I think it a shame to hang them on a wall when they could be making syrup. After all that it was they were ment to do. Would you be happy sitting in a chair in the corner or beside the evaporator with the hydrometer in your hand, steam in your face and sugar on your lips???? Brian

P.s. I have walls full of cool stuff just hanging around!!!!

[Dill]

I believe these are going to be turned into a working rig.
I know the one I mentioned about hanging on the wall is way too big for my operation at 5 or 6 feet wide. But I think I could make an awesome window with it. It would even come with shutters.

[DS Maple]

The True and Blanchard front is being made into an evaporator because there is a good market for hobby evaporators now, plus the design is not very original. There's a possibility it could have been made by, or at least with help from GH Grimm, since everything is essentially the same size and shape. The only difference I can tell is that the handles on the doors for the Blanchard front are slightly different shaped than those on Grimm fronts. Actually, the original ash door (bottom) broke and a used Grimm door found at Bascom's fit perfectly. The Vermont Farm Machine front is a bit more interesting and as much as we'd like to make it into a working evaporator we don't need two. The current idea is to make a table using the Vermont front and the old Grimm front that we replaced this year with an air-tight version. The castings would be used for the legs, if you can picture that.