kingOFgEEEks
Pinnacle OPE Member
- Local time
- 4:45 AM
- User ID
- 843
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2016
- Messages
- 1,723
- Reaction score
- 7,447
- Location
- Tioga County, PA
Not time here yet, still sub zero temps and crotch deep snow!
It's that time, isn't it?
My youngest tagged along last night for the sap collection. It takes a half hour to empty the barrel into the one on the back of my side by side when using the little 12v pump, but that just means time to check lines and goof off.
View attachment 328377
View attachment 328373 View attachment 328375 View attachment 328376
View attachment 328379
Never ending job. Especially with ash trees mixed into my hardwood stand. At least it's free firewood!
Cleared all the blowdowns off of our lines today. Next step is to start fixing all the bad spots in the lines.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ryan my boys and I plan on stopping over to visit on the 13th.Here's what I was working on this morning: after I hung the mainline through the woods I ran "lateral lines" out from the mainline. Each has 2-6 taps and is under 100' long. They connect to the high tensile wire using these nifty slide fittings. View attachment 328928
After that the tail is connected to these saddle fittings (there's many designs but this one from DSD Star seems like the best to my eye:View attachment 328929
When it's finished the saddle fitting isn't under any tension and you have a nice loop. View attachment 328930 When you're checking for leaks you push the loop down and observe how the sap is moving. If it's slow that's good, if there is air flying past the liquid you head up the lateral looking for vacuum leaks.
The forecast shows at least a week until we need to tap. Hopefully I'll have my ducks in a row by then.
Do you use the DSD Stars taps? If so what style and hole size? Do you like them?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ryan my boys and I plan on stopping over to visit on the 13th.