Northeast Ohio?

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Originally Posted by christopherh

Tom, Still looking. I might have one built this spring. For now I'm still using a 65 and 35 gallon tank in the Gator. It's tough pouring the sap in the 6 inch opening. I did have a that Amish guy you mentioned build big funnels for them. Theyre not done yet. I think I'll hook up the 6 barrel tank to the Kubota this year to.

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ChristopherH. I also collect with 35 gal tanks in the back of my gator. This year I built this set up to avoid having to lift up and try to pour into the 6" holes. Not an original idea, but the bilge pump empties the dump tank almost as fast as I can pour. The pump has a built-in float switch so it shuts off on its own. It's powered by the 12V outlet on the dash of the gator. The pipe coming out of the dump tank swings from one tank to the other when one gets full.
I figured last year I had almost as much running on the outside of the 35 gal tanks as inside- this should fix that.
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Good luck this year.

Johnallin, Wow! what a great idea! Where did you get the pump?

ChristopherH. I got it from a Cleveland boat supply store - West Marine. But found this link on line;
http://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Bilg.../dp/B003BQ934E

It's a 1500 gph pump ( that's 25 gal/min!) with an automatic float switch. Once powered up; it begins pumping as soon as sap depth gets to about 1/2" and continues until the tank is empty. This way I just dump and go for the next pail. I also took another bucket and cut the bottom out to fit snugly in the top hole - this acts like a big splash gaurd and holds a 12" ss mesh screen and filters to pre-filter the sap.

The pipe is 1" cpvc on one of those new (to me anyway) push type fittings. The added benifit of these is that they swivel; which allows me to swing the discharge pipe from one tank to another. The pump is screwed into the bottom of the tank and comes apart for cleaning by depressing two little tabs on the sides. Entire assembly then can be lifted out and cleaned each day or as needed.

Like I said; I can't take credit for the idea, it's been mentioned here before, I just put it together with what I was able to come up with. As I go to bigger - and taller- tanks, this will become even more useful. As it is now, I'm only lifting to about waist height - but can empty a pail as fast as I can turn it on its side.
I can send more pictures if you're interested.

Well today's "run" was a letdown. Was supposed to be in the low 40s but never made it much above freezing in our bush. Pulled in maybe 80-90 gallons off 325 taps on vac. Looks like the next run wont be until Monday, but of course the forecast changes by the minute.

A big thank you goes out to One Leg John who spent much of the day yesterday at my place troubleshooting my electric releaser system. Its definitely a work in progress. Fortunately I have been able to run the releaser and water pump at 15" of vac but no higher. Even at 15" Im amazed what vacuum can do when gravity tubing would just be weeping sap.

Well what do you know. I went back down and turned vac back on at 830 and weve got sap running. Not great but ill take it. It actually warmed up after 7 pm. Still running as of 12:30 am.

Heus, how much have you pulled in since yesterday? I'm on buckets and I was lucky if the spiles were damp!

I got about 200 gallons on 325 taps. Not great but better than nothing. Most of that came last night between 830pm and probably 1 or 2am.

I think I will put out my 50 or so buckets this weekend. If they dry up early oh well I have hundreds of other maples to tap if needed.

Hangin 100 buckets and bags today to get my tap count to 425.