November Journal

[maplecrest]

when i cut the holes in my hood found drilling hard bought carbide tip drill bits 3 bucks each. as for the main holes two of us on a pair of sheers cut the holes for steam stacks. worked great that way nice clean holes.was nice the plate covers any mistakes

[ennismaple]

Originally Posted by Dave Y

The hole was already cut in the front hood and guess where it falls right on a rafter. Oh well there are remedies for that

I've been told mine won't be pre-cut so I can avoid that problem. My rafters are on 24" centres so there's not much play in a 17" stack to fit it through!

[Sugarmaker]

3rdgen.
You were right on!, the car engine light corrected its self yesterday after about 100 miles. Thanks

I am working in Google Sketch up on the sketches for the WRU components. Couple more years and I may get the hang of it

Chris

[Dave Y]

Ennis,
I was told mine wouldn't be precut either, But it was.

[Amber Gold]

Today was a good day. I made it out in the woods with a level and was able to see if I could get a sap ladder to work at the bottom of the hill to get everything over the crest and down to the sugar house. It looks like it'll work, but it's going to be tall. If I clear the crest of the hill w/ 3+ feet and run a 2% slope 500' to the bottom of the hill, I'll be 27.5' in the air. Now if I clear the crest with less than that and run less than 2% I can bring that 27.5' down a bit...maybe in the 20' range. One sap line comes in around 5.5' off the ground so I'd be looking at a sap ladder less than 22'. The others can be up to 10' off the ground. My new vac. pump should pull 25". I'm going to sketch my woods up next week and post it on the trader to get input on how best to set the sap ladders up, whether I go for one big one, one for each mainline, or something else.

I've also found trying to set mainline by eye can be very deceiving. You really need a level when setting it. I ran through all my mainline and found the flat one I had, really was flat and the lower half of it is going to come up about 2', and the upper end is actually going to drop a couple of feet and get down to waist height. I also found the upper end of another mainline is going to drop down to waist level and I can remove that short sap ladder and extend it through the flatter areas w/out any problems w/ pitch.

Overall a very good day. Should be starting woods work in the next couple of weeks, once I get the sugar wood done...

[red maples]

When I installed the mainline I used a site level. but I think messed up right in the begininng. before I started to put in saddles I put 1 gallon of water in 1 section of the mainline to see if all the water would come out and I was pleased I got back 3/4 of a gallon but I knew there was a quart still in there somewhere. So my flat spot was about 30 ft in when I drilled a hole for the saddle, water came out. So I fixed it up ran the test gallon again and got just shy of the full gallon which I would contribute to fittings and what not. So even with a level I still had a dip. after I get all the saddles on and all the laterals tight I will go back and check things out again just to be sure!!!

[Dennis H.]

Today was a day to get a bunch of things wrapped up.

I now have te one bender milk releaser mounted next to the dairy tank and works great.
I also go the other Bender mounted to a skid platform that I made up for the lower part of my system. It is just a small pallet with a 50 gal rubbermaid container and a pole that the Bender is mounted to. Once the season is over it will be moved back up to the sugarshack.

I made a bench to hold my coffee maker for bottling syrup.

Slowly I am getting things done.

[KenWP]

She who must be obeyed insisted that I do real work today instead of maple stuff. So I had to repair the rotted out floor in the office of the greenhouse. The OSB was completly rotted and turns out the beams under neath were gone also. Weeeeeeeeee such fun. Now I can go back to doing something worth while.

[Sugarmaker]

Went to a auction couple of miles away. Nothing maple there but chatted with several producers, neighbors, and friends.
After I stopped at Gary R's Cousin and picked his brain on tig welding stainless for the WRU. Sounds feasible and Kurt gave me some good tips on joint design to make welding simpler and ideas on welding equipment. He stopped over and looked at the plans that I have and the materials and helped me with some brainstorming.
Puttered in the sugar house tonight and helped the neighbor with a small restoration of a bench vice. I think we saved it!

Regards,
Hope all maple families are well.
Chris

[brookledge]

Sitting here watching MNF and waiting for another batch of candy to be ready to make. My first Christmas fair is this Sat. Syrup sales this year have been good so I'm wondering how maple products will sell this Christmas?
I will know in a few weeks.
Keith