[Mark Cowdrey]

I often find parts @ Shoup but they only have discs as small as 16″ in their catalog.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Ed,
I have a Grimm I am looking to move along, for parts, use, whatever.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Jay,
Pole length on my arch is 8’9-1/2: end of receiver for neck yoke plug to back of evener bolt. Remember all that the evener in this situation is+/- 30″ off the ground, so heel clipping is not an issue.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Thanks Ed. Very similar to my system.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

screw it Jay, I’ll email them to you.
M

[Mark Cowdrey]

another try

[Mark Cowdrey]

I am also a plug yoke fan. I was able to shorten my pole about the same as Brad. I opted to use a pipe receiver welded on top of the pole bracket so I would not have to bore out the pole. The pipe protrudes so you can use a ring style neckyoke if you need to. I used chain links instead of eyebolts; seemed easier, and cheaper. Maybe not quite the same range of motion, but plenty.
Good Luck.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Finally got my sweet boiled off yesterday. It went pretty well, only started about 4 points low in the finisher. I had boiled it down in the arch the day before which was a little hair raising tho went fine. A lot of things to keep an eye on at one time. I set the 16×16 finisher up on top of the back pan to drain into a front float box & kept filling that. Now the clean-up.
I ended up w 64 gallons total from 264 taps (99 buckets) plus 175 gall from a neighbor. I added a bunch of red taps here but noticed that the buckets didn’t do hardly anything. Maybe the reds need vac? Guess I will keep thinning for the sugars and hope I am done before the beetle gets here. Hope to get a line run at another neighbor’s next Fall, I’m guessing another 75-100 there.
Mitch I also dumped a bunch of decent sap when I pulled buckets but it seems the lines had quit. I was “done” anyway.
Ed how do you wash your lines?
All – ya the new grading system sucks, the price of living in an under-regulated-corporatocracy. As my Dad would have said, “Those that got the gold make the rules.” This new systems aligns everything across state lines so the big boys can package everything in their metric containers and sell them in any state they want. Reminds me of the bulk tank laws and Earl Butz.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Now we’re sugarin’…

[Mark Cowdrey]

Sure, happy to have the company. Hope to be up and running in a couple weeks.
M

[Mark Cowdrey]

Jay, For a handful of anything sugaring-wise I would call Bascom’s & have them mail it. I would get the 5/16 tree saver spouts (spout or spile, not spigot) https://www.bascommaple.com/item/sphlats/spout_bucket/. If your buckets have small hanging holes in them that are made for the hooks on the bigger 7/16 spouts, just ream them out w a drill. 7/16 spouts should all be in the recycling, IMO.
Buckets are a different question. Bascom’s has them but fairly pricey. Check Craigslist and http://mapletrader.com/traderclassifieds/
When looking at buckets I stay away from anything that has been painted, and check inside for rust.
At least w this season you are not yet in a BA rush.
Good luck.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Great observations Brad.
Not entirely on the flip side but.. I try to remember that the expense is in the keeping them, not the buying them. 4K seems high now but that is due partly to the fact that 2 years ago they might have been half that. But it is not two years ago now.
The price is less important than whether they will do what you need them to do.
Also, a “small amount” of farm work could be next to nothing. It might be if I thought I had a hot prospect…
Good Luck,
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Donn,
Good post. You could be talking about me. Actually I would think you were talking about me if you had “liked” the video I posted on FB yesterday :)! And I agree, looking at visual documentation after the fact shows me things I did not notice as they were happening, although in this case it is partly due to being distracted by something of an advertising/vanity project. I can’t be videoing & giving full attention to my driving. In this case the near horse’s inside line was slack because he was lagging.
The few times I have experimented w making adjustments in order to try to improve overall bit contact and head position, I have not noticed any consistent effect. Perhaps I was not making enough of an adjustment. Another possibility is that I let my horses get away with too much “moving around in the hitch”, up and back, maybe one this time and the other another. I might make an adjustment, drive my team loose, see that they walk about the same spacing as they should when on a pole, put them on a pole and find I still have an issue. I might notice that one horse has a slack inside line but has his head turned that way. I guess that would be a different issue.
This would be a great demo for Cummington.
Thanks,
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Brad,
How short do you hitch it? I find that longer gives more drag but more “inside corner swing”. Shorter the opposite. I tend to move the hitch point of whatever I am dragging, long & short & left & right, based on whim & guessing.
Mark

[Mark Cowdrey]

Joel,
You are right. Those are the ones I got from Meaders. With a Dremel or such the sharp edges could probably be eased to make an (at least aesthetically) acceptable tool.
Carl,
By “shiny” do yo mean the ones w the paint & bare codes? Neither of those appear stretched.

When the wear notch in mine (as in photo @2) got concerningly large, I had my welder fill it w hard rod. Worked well.
Again, would be nice to find someone to cast some like the #2’s.
Does anyone feel the little hinged keeper rings are useful? I have lost a couple of mine and find it makes harnessing (slightly) more streamlined. They serve no purpose that I can tell on a properly adjusted D-ring harness. Perhaps a sidebacker harness, or some other harness w jockey yokes other than a D-ring, is rigged lose enough so their “safety” function would come into play?
Mark

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