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Thread: Building a Flue Pan

  1. #11
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    The cooler sap coming in pushes the hot up and out to a flat bottom syrup pan.
    Maple syrup makers never die, they just evaporate.

    Kubota M-5040,Kubota B-2650,Kubota XRT 900, Sugarhouse is now a guest cottage.

  2. #12
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    Ok So Its The Opposit Of What I Was Thinking. The Cooler Sap Flows In And Goes To The Bottom, In Return Pushes The Hot Sap Up In The Pan, So When You Are Drawing Off That Pan You Are Drawing Off The Cooking Sap.. I Think I Understand Know.. Thanks
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  3. #13
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    Rook,

    The other thing to keep in mind is when you are boiling in a drop flue, there is violent mixing going on at all times. There is absolutely no separation of density vertically and only some due to the separator that runs down the middle of the flue pan to keep the sap from running straight across from inlet to outlet to the syrup pan.
    John
    2x8 Smokylake drop flue with AOF/ AUF
    180 taps on sacks
    75 on 3/16 tubing with shurflo
    Eden Prairie, Minnesota

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by MAPLE ROOKIE View Post
    Ok So Its The Opposit Of What I Was Thinking. The Cooler Sap Flows In And Goes To The Bottom, In Return Pushes The Hot Sap Up In The Pan, So When You Are Drawing Off That Pan You Are Drawing Off The Cooking Sap.. I Think I Understand Know.. Thanks
    I think it would be very diffcult to draw syrup off on a flue pan, if not darn near impossible. A flat bottom syup pan is usually used in conjunction with a flue pan.
    Maple syrup makers never die, they just evaporate.

    Kubota M-5040,Kubota B-2650,Kubota XRT 900, Sugarhouse is now a guest cottage.

  5. #15
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    Absoloutly WONDERFUL work on that flue pan. Back before I bought my evaporator, I tried to make a single flue out of galvanised as a test before I bought stainless. I had a 48" box & pan brake, and took care bending it, but the warpage as I tried to attach the flue ends kept me from getting it tight enough to hold water. I gave up and bought an evaporator.

    I do occasionally reconsider the project. (Good excuse to buy a TIG welder, right?) I have seen a set of cooling fins on an electrical transformer that were closed off at the ends by folding the bottom of each fin (flue) up into the center then camping the sides down onto it and welding closed.

    I imagine you would have to have a shaped wood form inside to keep it from closing in further back than necessary. I could also forsee problems at the top of the flue where it joins the rest of the pan.

    An interesting thing to consider, but I have no idea if it's doable with normal shop skills and equipment.
    Tons of trees. No taps, No evaporator
    No wife, No Kids. Nothing left but Dreams

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fred Henderson View Post
    I think it would be very diffcult to draw syrup off on a flue pan, if not darn near impossible. A flat bottom syup pan is usually used in conjunction with a flue pan.
    I DIDNT MEAN DRAWING SYRUP OFF THE FLUE PAN BUT DRAWING OFF SAP FROM THE FLUE PAN TO THE SYRUP PAN...
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  7. #17
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    IBBY

    Before I started this - I tried a number of things to validate my ability to weld up these flues. I started with a pile of mild steel strips, welding 1"x6" coupons into a staircase.

    I tried folding up the edges on the ends so the one piece fit like an L up agains the other ( |L ) then welding either the lower corner of the L or the top of the L - neither worked anywhere near as well, primarily because with the thin material - if you are welding the edge of one piece onto the flat of another - the edge will pull away and melt back rather than fusing.

    I tried MIG welding at the lowest settings on both my MIG welders - quickly determined that TIG was a better option - both for the ability to control the heat, and the fact that no filler was being added.

    After about 100 steps on the staircase, I determined that the best way to get a good watertight joint was to butt the edges together and fuse the 2 pieces from the outside of the corner. No filler. You need tight fitup, tack at the ends and the middle, then fuse into the center. Keep the pressure on the joint edges with the off hand to keep them together. More heat and more speed seems to work better than less heat and slower. The idea is to get a small puddle going and flow it forward to the center tack. Vertical down or horizontal - not vertical up.

    Short story - warping has not been an issue for me - but I ensure tight fit up, I move fast to reduce heat build up, and if I do build up too much heat, I immediatly move to another flue until the heat dissipates, then come back, close the gap by tapping with a hammer and resume where I left off.

    Wood form - I used a wooden fork on the outside to keep the flues square while I welded - I used the Vice-Grips on the plate to keep the spacing correct until welding was complete. No need for a form inside - but a cardboard dam to contain the argon was required.

    Because I am using seperate pieces for the pan end as the flue ends - I have to seam along the top of the flues. What I did was leave the flue end pieces slightly long, allowing them to overlap the pan end by about 1/8". This gave me something to register the pan end against while I welded it to the flats between the flues. Then I welded that 1/8" flue end extension to the outside of the pan end leaving a small gap at the radius of each bend where the flues were formed. For those I needed to use filler to build across the hole.

  8. #18
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    Default Nice Job

    Big Eddy I have been intrigued reading your post on making this pan, gets me thinking about trying to make my own. Can you tell me what size flue pan you ended up with. Also did you put any type of drain pipe across the bottom of your flues to drain them. Thanks.
    Rob

  9. #19
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    I'm not done yet - but the flue pan is ~18" wide x 39" long - I will be building a 18"x 21" syrup pan to go in front of it. Will give me a 18"x60" evaporator - roughly modelled on the 18"x60" models that are sold as hobby evaporators for up to 150 trees. I do 100 trees a year on a 2x3 flat pan now - will stay at 100 for so this should be a huge improvement to me.

    The 18" width was governed by the 96" length of the sheet. 2x9" sides + 6@5" flues uses 78" of the 96, leaving 18" for the width. There are 2 dividers with 2 flues in each section. Flues are roughly 1" wide and 1" apart.

    I did not put any drains in the flues - I considered it and decided it would be easy enough to siphon out if needed.

  10. #20
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    Big Eddy,
    Very good educational post. May help me if I get into a project this summer.
    Regards,
    Chris
    Casbohm Maple and Honey
    625 roadside taps + Neighbors bring some sap too!
    3x10 King, WRU, AOF and AUF
    12" SIRO Filter Press.
    2015 Ford F250 PSD sap hauler
    One Golden named Maggie, Norwegian Forest Cat named Lucy
    Too many Cub Cadets
    Ford Jubilee and several Allis WD's, and IH tractors
    1932 Ford AAB ton and a half, dump truck

    www.mapleandhoney.com

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