7 Steps to Bricking an Evaporator Arch

my name is Rick Fogle co-owner at Sugarbush supplies today we're going to Brick an arch I've done quite a few over the years and gotten pretty good at it so I thought I'd show you some of the tricks to to help you along if you do your own [Music] we've gathered the tools that I'll use today to to Brick an arch traditionally we used a full brick and Arch in the arch which is two and a half inches a more modern way to do it is use a as a fbx 1900 degree board with a split Brick In Front which comes out to about the same thickness today we are going to do the the board with a split brick in it got tools to cut the board with ruler square and then later we'll bind a few bricks in with the refractory cement the bricks will be cut with a diamond saw that it's over here okay I've determined that this is going to be a rage slew evaporator with a dry flu evaporator we would board and brick it here for the racial evaporator we put a baffle in that comes with your arch we got the second one that overlaps here the right hand side they're labeled and now I'm going to go ahead and bolt this in and tighten them [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] we use a brick rail that that we make to make the bricking a little easier I feel it's more stable because normally they would brick all the way to the floor and you get rid of a lot of that instability in the side Rick rails placed I put the web out place that in there and then we'll put the grates in which is a great um you want to make sure you put these in right side up this area here is going to fill the dashes to help cool the grate and then you've got good clearance here underneath for the Ashes to fall out if you put a mine upside down the ashes will wedge and your grates will stretch and grow and bend it's important when you put the grates in in an arch that you have clearance on the ends because this grate is going to heat up and grow so you've got to have a half to 3 8 of an inch here this is a two by four Arch so I'm going to do a treatment here where I use an angle iron to hold the bricks here because it's hard to Brick it without them setting on the grates this is a board this is a ceramic fiber with a binder in it it's fairly easy to cut with just a razor knife I have a little trick where I all's I do is set the board on here creates a line that I can cut along make sure you get a razor knife other than a utility knife because you've got to cut through an inch of material and a rate just a standard razor knife won't do it this one has an extendable blade it's kind of hard to see my line but I want to have just less than where it made the little indentation in it I actually have a bent piece of plywood here it gives it a clearance that it's a trick I've learned [Music] foreign good then I use a brick you've got rivets here that you need to set it into so I just use a brick to set it in like that foreign [Music] extra piece of angle I call it it's a brick rail it's going to sit in here like this and that supports our board and and brick because of the 2x4 Arch the grates come out this far it's hard to Brick this one without that rail it's gonna end up being held and I've cheated here a little bit I've got a pattern that I use that I'll show you how to make it that holds that in place and now we're going to add board to this surface it's going to take my knife and score it here [Music] and I'll use my Square to cut that and I've got my angle established here [Music] thank you so these boards are a foot wide so they're gonna two of them's Gonna Fill the [Music] fill the arch with just a little bit of clearance on each side which is fine foreign [Music] I've got eight and a half inches to the shirt side so I set this to the short side eight and a half inches and Mark it with your ruler makes it real easy to mark it I'm going to cut that off at 90 and I'm using the cut off from that vertical piece in the front there [Music] [Music] we use this piece here it's easy it doesn't matter if you've got joints in it here and it makes this easy set that in there foreign [Music] now we can cap these basically you can do a site like this [Music] foreign there hopefully this one's big enough it is another trick you can use if you are off a little bit you can use a brick to sand it a little bit to bring in nice this doesn't have to be real accurate because you're going to get a good layer of split bricks over the top of it okay now we've got to fill in the two sides and the backs I just put put split bricks because your heat's pretty much gone away at that point so you don't need the board there just measure down here and you kind of guess where it should go got 20 and a half but ten and three quarter [Music] I'm excited Yep this one too [Music] and this this little Arch is pretty tight so it's a little harder to come up with your stuff it's just trial and fit it doesn't matter if there's um you know a little bit of air here because you're going to get it brick good you can actually take some slivers and fill in there there again I'll use my brick to kind of [Music] form it into those bolts and rivets and you get a nice tight fit you've got to add a little triangle here and actually I'll make another one of these because it should fit the same on the other side out the bird goes no I try to get it so they all look the same but once in a while you cut one upside down it doesn't matter it's just in the manufacturer and one has a little texture to it all right three and five eighths foreign replicate that on the other side foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] okay now we've completed the boarding process we can start dry fitting the bricks foreign bricks a wet brick saw with a 14 inch blade Diamond blade it's really convenient you can do it probably with a tile saw it takes a I mean it takes a few more Cuts this one here I can cut a full four and a half inches I put my brick in horizontal and then I split the joints so I'll start with a full brick then I'll then I'll saw one in half that offset your joints here and gives you more stability so that they can grip each other so I'm gonna cut some half now when I do cuts like this I've had a pattern for my last brick so I've traced it and what I do here is I just visually set the brick on the table do a visual here and I can cut that these here look a little dangerous when I do them but I just hold this up here and there again do a visual to cut these Cuts here and I'll just go in with a saw the saw comes down and and just cuts it like butter foreign okay so I've got the custom cut brick here that's going to hold this angle iron brick rail up push that in there and place this brick in there and I want to a good eighth of an inch to a quarter here of clearance for my mortar then I'm going to start with a split up here another full brick full length brick split I'm going to leave that Gap there these here I I stand these up first that locks them in behind this brick so here we've got to cut a brick that fills this I've left my Gap back here foreign so the first thing I do is establish an angle use my ruler that's going to need to go out there about two and three quarters so we put a Mark here [Music] foreign this wall I've left my mortar Gap so I need some four inch two four inches there and then I'm also going to cut at this point this Brick's gonna sit on here I'm Gonna Leave This full face down the front so I set that brick there and that's going to give me the length of those so first I'll cut the two four inch actually I'll cut three four inch because I've got to make one here and then I'll set up a jig to cut these so they all come out nice the same [Music] [Music] [Music] found it [Music] [Music] so we've bricked over the baffle down the back of the baffle I'm reusing some bricks to add the angle cut that cut out of here and then I'm just gonna fill this in and cut the two sidewalls which are going to take about three in a triangular brick we've I've pretty much finished cutting the brick dry fit fitting them now I'm going to give you some tips on mortaring the ones that I do here I do this and block them in you take them home and mortar them at home because we don't want to crack the joints and transportation this one here I'm going to give you a demo on how I would after you got it home you would level the arch get established where you want it set and level it and then you can take the bricks out I'm gonna I'm gonna mark them and then take them and lay them on the table here because the first brick we put in is down here in the bottom so I just take a marker and go like this try to get all bricks make a little puzzle out of it then I'm just going to take them carefully and set them over here [Music] foreign got a bucket to mix the refractory cement in this is a dry type so I'm going to mix up probably just a couple scoops of it because it sets up kind of fast so you just mix small batches and work along I want to get this to the consistency of a thin frosting because we're going to take the brick and we're going to dip The Edge that contact in it if you don't use a trowel foreign [Music] foreign okay the first break that goes in uh only contacts on one end so I just and that you just want to butter it up so it looks like that all you're doing is taking a you're getting rid of the Gap you end up with no mortar joint so I just tuck that like that next brick that's a nice consistency there just got a little whisker on it foreign [Music] go get our next brick it's just going to contact on the bottom and I I did cut one I didn't not sure I showed it earlier but this goes along the face there so I just need a little right there you can get that tucked in there before it gets too late next brick do the edge and the end so I did those two edges this is going to contact that face brick so a little there a little there how's my puzzle coming out looks good foreign [Music] foreign when I cut these I left some Gap here you always want clearance here because these bricks will grow so you had to have an eighth or a quarter inch there you can stuff uh rail gasket in or when you lay your rail gasket on it's two inches wide make sure it hangs over here to protect the heat from getting on this metal [Music] I'm gonna have to go re-cut that brick it's a little tight I gained as I came up so that's how I do it that oh after you get done I like I like it to dry a little bit and then all I do is scrape your joints off like that [Music] if you get one that missing a little you can tuck some foreign a lot better if you uh do this in non-freezing weather if if it is cooler out in your heat temporarily heating the Sugar House um one trick I use is take a piece of plywood lay over the top of it and put a light bulb or a even a lantern or something like that in it to to slowly cure it over a couple days doesn't have to go real fast now give you a good a good bind on your refractory cement okay we've got a used Arch here that came back in that was bricked and and I just wanted to explain the importance of getting clearance on the end of the grates when when I when I or you break it you should get a piece of double triple wall cardboard or a piece of laugh and place it right behind the grates so that this brick isn't tight to the end of the grate when this grate gets temperature in it it grows in lengths and it has to have clearance to do that so that's if by putting that in there when you originally brick it and this Arch has stayed good and the grates are still good and straight because of that another this shows how the grates get ashes in the top they're cleaned out now but to cool them and that's the proper side up for it the other thing that shows here is is the clearance along the top Edge where where I didn't cut the bricks real tight and he's tucked some some rail gasket in there and this you know this brick moves but you can't get it out it's lost its Bond but you can tuck some more rail gasket material ceramic fiber in there use the soldiers on the back standing on end but this is that four or five years service it's still in pretty good shape [Music]

Channel: H2O Innovation – Leader

Views: 7,879

Keywords: maple, maple farming, evaporators, sugarmaking

Id: vK0kpd-wFk0

Length: 30min 6sec (1806 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023