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Gerry,
Glad to here the test boil went well. The blower I had on that was a 265 cfm Dayton that I ran at about half speed or it would blow ash between the doors. I have been told that running those blowers on a dimmer switch is not good for them, makes them wear out quicker. I was told the better method is to put a damper in the plenum, run the blower wide open, and adjust air flow with the damper. Those blower motors are made to run against alittle back pressure, keeps them from turning too many rpms. You are further along than me. I still don't have the new rig set up.
Jim
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Got back around 8:30 pm Wednesday evening from the PA Farm Show in Harrisburg. This was my first visit to the Show and I'm sure I will be going back. 24 acres under roof with everything farm related you can think of. It's billed as the largest agricultural show in the country. Spent 8 hours between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning trying to take everything in and I know I didn't see it all.
One of the most impressive sights was the 900 lb butter sculpture. The picture was too big to add here so I will try to load it in photobucket.
We submitted six entries in the maple competition and I found where we can make some improvements for next year. A real learning experience!
Jim
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Test boil
I took the day off on tuesday and did the test boil on my new rig. I think that I did some things right this time like raising the evaporator high enough so that I can use hot water to rinse collection barrels eliminating any kind of funnel and bucket set up. It is small things like that that make life better. All buckets are rinsed and ready. All collection barrels are ready and waiting. Most of the tubing is up ( still some work to do). I do need to re calibrate my feed tank and sight tube. It said that my rig boiled off 35 gallons of water in 45 minutes. This seems a little high for a plain jane 2x6. My wood is real dry and I was doing the timer routine. Overall it was a good day and for once everything worked well.-ss
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well i was in the bush yesterday cleaning line and found some fallen trees from that wind storm we just had and some broken lines so im back there again today
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I've got over 3000 feet of mainline wire up to carry the new wet and dry lines in the bush down the road. Bringing in couple thousand feet of pipe today to start stringing up. Couple more wires to run to get more dry and wet lines and I will have at least gotten the sap out of the woods and pretty close to the paved road & electricity. I should be able to get the wet line run, part of the dry and hopefully some more wire. It should start coming together nicely now. Then got to weave the maze of blue, but at least I'll have 500 coming to the road. Can't wait to see how many are in that bush, or at least the 1/2 I am setting up to tap. Lots that is for sure.
Ramona is thirsty, got to make sure I got enough to quench her thirst.
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I've put about 45 new taps on reds, and removed quite a few extra taps off my sugars, and still have half the bush to go. I wish I'd kept track better, because I've already lost track on how many total taps I've got now.
I also bought some neat cast iron health spouts for buckets, and will put more trees on buckets around the house.
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Looks like those runs are a bit longer, the wet was 1700 feet, and dry will be the same so that's 3400 feet wet & dry. Got the wet in decent shape. Shot some more videos this morning on running tubing and splicing mainline. I'll see what they actually look like and see if they are worth posting. Kinda hard to hold everything and film at the same time.
Should be one priceless moment, when I am walking backwards and showing off my new tubing unrolling trick, and a log jumped out and clipped me behind the knee's and on my A$$ I went still filming.
There's ton's of nice trees in there, I bet I'll have 1500 easy, if I can keep up the pace.
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You guys reminded me, I need to get out and check lines (roadside drive by) after our big wind storm two nights ago. May have pruned some of the old dead maple limbs?
Jim,
Can't wait to hear about the farm show. Sounds like you had a great time. Any food down there? How about tractors?
Chris
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well i went out and check are bush today and all that main line we just put up was never touched but the other side of are bush were we have not tapped yet there was like 3 trees that fell. we also cleaned more lines and found a broken line that had been eaten and we also found 4 spit taps know i have never heard of split taps has any one else ever had this
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Worked on 1/3 of the bush last weekend! Took down trees off the lines fixed sagging lines and put helpers on the saddles....Replaced some old drops and shortened some....Will start the other 2/3s this comming week....Hope to get it done in 2-3 days....Will start adding the other 500/600 new drops on the new mainline we put in earlier.....Its about 500 ft long with maples on both sides.....Put a rail system on the preheater hood to make it easier to clean the back pan.....Took barn door track and bolted it over the hood....Put chain from hood to door rollers with turn buckles to raise hood and then slide it out of the way.......Works real good..........
