Leader CV Spouts ???

[spud]

Spud -these are all reasons why we bought the clear cv2 spouts. What we didn't want or need is the pinholes. Didn't even notice the pinholes until we turned the vacuum on. We are going to have to go back through the 7000 taps we put up to see which ones leak. Still tapping using NOT Leader. Using CDL and LaPierre instead.

I hope and pray you only have a handful of bad spouts and that you find them fast. When I was tapping I broke a few of these spouts and the tip stayed in the tree. I drilled them out and put a new spout in but question if that was a good idea. I flagged the spout and know where they are so if they do start leaking during the season I will pull them. My only other option would be to ream the hole to 7/16 and put in a bigger spout for one season. I wish you the best.

Spud

[Greenwich Maple Man]

I would sue as well ! No question ! To offer a dollar a spout is about the same as offering people who spend thousands a hot dog and a cold drink !

[Randy Brutkoski]

7000, that is going to be alot of work. If you find 200 leader will give you $200. I would tell them to keep the $200 and get there sh-t together. This could be real bad for leader.

[batsofbedlam]

Beginning to sound like one big rumor mill.

[Greenwich Maple Man]

Beginning to sound like one big rumor mill.

It came right from Leader. How is that a rumor ?

[BAP]

Before everybody gets to torked off, I guess most of you either don't know because you are too young or don't remember tubing that would shatter in the cold after the second or third year at the slightest touch. Fittings that would snap when you touched the lines below 35 degrees. Tubing and fittings not being consistently sized so they went together hard. So on and so on. These spouts are not the first product in maple tubing history that has had problems. Many were not admitted to by the companies that made them. In this day and age, too many people expect everything to be perfect or else they scream they are going to sue. Sure, it sucks when something like this happens, sure it costs money, but get over it and except that anything man made has the likely hood to have problems at some point and time. Nothing in this world is perfect.

[spud]

Before everybody gets to torked off, I guess most of you either don't know because you are too young or don't remember tubing that would shatter in the cold after the second or third year at the slightest touch. Fittings that would snap when you touched the lines below 35 degrees. Tubing and fittings not being consistently sized so they went together hard. So on and so on. These spouts are not the first product in maple tubing history that has had problems. Many were not admitted to by the companies that made them. In this day and age, too many people expect everything to be perfect or else they scream they are going to sue. Sure, it sucks when something like this happens, sure it costs money, but get over it and except that anything man made has the likely hood to have problems at some point and time. Nothing in this world is perfect.

BAP you have got to be kidding. I remember the day's of poor tubing and different size fittings. Back then the US Maple fittings seemed to work best but because we chewed on all our tubing and stretched it too much just to keep it tight things came apart all the time. Tubing tools and new style tubing/fittings are a God send for sure. The pin hole leak in the new CV2s is a whole different issue. There is a big difference between a 100 tap back yard operation like yours and a 7000 tap operation like rgmaple has. 7000 CV2s cost $2800.00 and a sugar maker with 7000 taps hopes to make 3500 gallons of syrup valued at $105,000 dollars. If every spout has a pinhole and no high vacuum will work because of this the sugar maker will only make about half production meaning he could loose $52,500 dollars. To tell this sugar maker to (get over it is wrong on your part). I could tap your whole woods in 45 minutes but it would take me two full weeks of back breaking work to tap rgmaples woods. When a person buys a product they expect that product to work the way the seller is claiming it will. The bigger problem with this pin hole issue is you might not be able to just pull the spouts and replace them. The tips could break off and stay in the tree causing a bigger problem. If this happens replacing spouts and removing tips could take 15-20 full days in waist deep snow (not 45 minutes). How many sap runs could be lost in the next 20 days? This is a VERY BIG DEAL to real sugar maker's and LEADER needs to fix it fast and be held ACCOUNTABLE.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

The tips could break off and stay in the tree causing a bigger problem.

First off, I don't know anything more than what has already been said here, so I won't comment on what happened, how Leader Evaporator is responding, or what the fix will be. I do know that they are cognizant of the problem and are working on it. I'm pretty sure that spouts made prior to January 2014 were not affected, or at the very least had a much lower incidence of problems. If you got them before January 2014, you're probably fine.

I did want to respond to the specific comment above. The tips (the very small end part of the assembly) that sometimes come out of the CV2 when you pull spouts is known to happen on some percentage of spouts. That is NOT a problem. If it happens when you pull spouts, it is best to just leave them in. The hole is there and won't fill in (never does) and the small piece of plastic will just stay there in the hole. If the tree is cut up later, the plastic won't affect a chainsaw. You are likely to do more damage by drilling it out than by simply leaving it in. Same thing holds for if you have to replace a spout. Just pull out the old one, and if the tip stays in the tree, put the new spout right in the same hole. The tip that was left in the tree will just get pushed a little deeper in. The only time this might be a problem is if you drill really shallow holes and the spout bottoms out.....if you do that, then you're either not drilling deep enough, or you're pounding the spouts in too far.

[unc23win]

Boy wouldn't it be nice if they came with production dates in the bags and knew when they started to have problems so they could issue a proper re call.

[spud]

Dr. Tim,

There is no doubt in my mind the tip will never hurt the tree if left in the tree. Chainsaws and other blades will be fine like you say. Although I really don't think production would stay the same if there was a second tip jammed in the tap hole. I can't help to wonder why there is not a quality control person checking 1 out of every 1000 made for defects.

Spud