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Ok, Well I am a bit of a romantic and would prefer to go the route of more work in order to have a fire in the belly of the old rig, than get a new set up. After looking over the arch in relation to my new pans and tank, I will try to go along the lines of what you recommended Chris and see how it goes. (A silver lining with this cold weather is extra time to work on this). I will let you know how it goes! Thanks for the advice.
Glenn,
Good luck, take some pictures as you mock up the pan on the arch. The more I think about it the more I think the pan sideways on the front of the arch will work.
Regards,
Chris
Glenn,
Have you come up with a plan?
Regards,
Chris
Why not just plate the top of the old arch add a few supports underneath to handle the weight and limit the amount of warpage and possibly some ceramic board or blanket under plates to handle heat as well. Center up the opening for the new pans and draw off the front. Center your fire under the new pans as much as possible. I gotta believe you will get a good boil. You will probably use some extra wood but who cares? That old arch is bad a$$ by the way!
I think Chris has the best idea yet, I to am using a an arch that was designed to bee 4x12 but am only cooking on the finishing pan what I did was I removed the flue pan and built a new end and stove pipe adapter but kept it all "loose" so to say so I can go back to the big evaporator when I am more comfortable and have more help (kids)
Ok folks, I am terribly sorry for the delayed reply, but things were pushed back a little here and a little there. Chris I really thought about how to execute your suggestion but was running into some problems with the stove pipe so decided a slightly less practical route but one that seems to maintain the old character of this ol' faithful. As you can see from the photos, I essentially just copied the layout of the original bricking inside. Part of this was made possible with a third preheater pan I got made by the fine folks at Murphy's metals. The front two pans I leveled with some frames I slapped together with thread stock on the legs so that I could adjust things until it was ready to be bricked and then used this as a frame work for the masonry.
The draw off is not on the ideal side, so I might see if I can't figure out how to get things switched around in the summer. Next steps would be placing metal sheets over the gaps in the arch to cut draft and really make it look spiffy. That and getting enough sap to feed the beast...unfortunately things are still pretty frozen here and I am running buckets this year so I might not be able to run it as much as I would like.
On the note, how much sap would a 2x12 evap take for sweetening the pans? I have been trying to wade through the many formulas given in the forum and can't seem to get a straight answer or calculator that works...Attachment 11078
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(Sorry once again for the photos, I can't seem to figure out how to get them rotated correctly. I will post more when we get it boiling with right orientation. )
Glenn,
You have been very busy. No problem with your work! It looks great. You might be the first with a arch within a arch system?
You could form some sheet steel over the old arch to the new one and have a good work surface each side???
You did good.
Its going to take all the sap to sweeten the pans:) Dont sweat the small stuff. Get the sap coming, boil until you have maybe 50 gallons left in the head tank and then dont fire any more. Get more sap and start up again. Repeat till you have syrup!
Nice work saving this history!
Regards,
Chris
Thanks again for all of the advice Chris. I will let you know when I am finally able to draw off syrup :)