considering a Leader Vermonter to upgrade a DIY setup

[BAP]

thanks!! this is sitting in my sugarhouse in pieces now. it's one of the galvanized arches, but the former owner had well insulated and bricked the entire arch, and the metal has done some rust but nothing scary. the pans look great to my relatively untrained eyes, we ran water through the whole thing before i took it apart and unbricked it.

I'm going to pull the arch insulation, wire brush the metal. then reinsulate and put the bricks back in. I'll get some pictures on here sometime.

this is much nicer than my single partition flat pans, which I'm probably going to sell to a neighbor who is boiling on hotel pans now. the circle of life.

Sorry didn’t answer you sooner was away a few days. Great it worked out for you getting it. It looked really good in the picture. I boiled on a 20x66” CDL drop flue for 5 years until I upgraded to a used 2x8. I think you will really like having the real evaporator pan setup. Glad that I was able to help. My arch had been repainted by previous owner with black stove paint and looks good and has held up well.

[linearb]

Sorry didn’t answer you sooner was away a few days. Great it worked out for you getting it. It looked really good in the picture. I boiled on a 20x66” CDL drop flue for 5 years until I upgraded to a used 2x8. I think you will really like having the real evaporator pan setup. Glad that I was able to help. My arch had been repainted by previous owner with black stove paint and looks good and has held up well.

Hey, one more question that I hope is no big deal! I didn't notice this when inspecting on site.

looking straight down, all these flues look totally straight, but there's actually a couple small bends visible when using a light at an angle:

https://i.imgur.com/enQdBfL.png
https://i.imgur.com/LYOGf6E.png
https://i.imgur.com/lY3srHr.png

The bends actually look worse in the pictures than in reality because we're seeing them reflected in the other side here, and the shot from the bottom is just distorted by light reflection. Running my hand along the side of the flue I can feel a very slight distortion there, but it's pretty minor. The metal appears completely normal and doesn't show any discoloration or other sign it's been subjected to scorching or unreasonable heat.

From reading around and looking at pictures of other pans this doesn't seem like it's nearly significant enough to worry about, but just wanted to double check. The former owner said they had made some small double digit number of gallons off this last year and had pics of it all running.

I am going to see about ordering more arch insulation and then get to work on rebricking; I'd really love to just to a test boil with water in ~a month, and then cover my chimney and cover the whole thing with tarps and figure I am raring to go as soon as stuff starts to flow next spring.

Especially since I still need to: run new mainlines, run ~30 new drop lines, set up a sap guzzler and test vacuum, move the location of my tank, and look at an RV water pump for pumping up from the tank to a feeder reservoir to feed the warming pan here....

[BAP]

You should be fine. Mine has a few wavy areas in it and a lot of them get that way over time. As far as insulation, I don’t know where you are located in VT, but most maple equipment dealers carry insulation and are very competitive on price, particularly after you pay shipping buying elsewhere.

[linearb]

You should be fine. Mine has a few wavy areas in it and a lot of them get that way over time. As far as insulation, I don’t know where you are located in VT, but most maple equipment dealers carry insulation and are very competitive on price, particularly after you pay shipping buying elsewhere.

All good info! I am like 20 mins from an actual CDL store, I will just go there first.

[linearb]

I am trying to sell my old setup and I was wondering if people could weigh in on the price:

https://vermont.craigslist.org/grd/d...486078833.html

I think this is fair just because getting a brand new set of pans from OKHardware, delivered, is going to be around $850 these days, plus a bit more for the valves. Steel isn't getting any cheaper, the pans are in great shape, and while the arch definitely needs some work it's structural and I am tossing in, I dunno, some hundred(s) in firebrick as well.

I think this is a good deal for someone, does anyone think I should be starting lower?