INSTRUCTIONS FOR BUILDING EVAPORATOR 545 



The furnace may be about four feet high by three feet wide, with an ash 

 pit in the bottom part, and six or eight or more feet long. This will handle 

 four-foot cordwood conveniently and make a liberal combustion chamber for 

 the flames. It may be a cylinder or shaped like a boiler, or have brick walls, 

 with a cast iron arch on top. Or it may be a big wrought iron box made of 

 quarter-inch boiler iron, braced with angle iron to prevent warping. 



A smoke pipe one foot in diameter connects with the back end of the fur- 

 nace, passes horizontally to near the back end of the drier, then by a short 

 elbow doubles back, coming to the front over the top of the furnace, and then, 

 by an elbow, to right or left through the side brick wall to connect with the 

 pipe inside of the ventilator shaft or flue. 



If the furnace is four feet high and the pipe above it one foot thick, allow 

 six inches space between the top of the furnace and the pipe and between 

 the pipe and the sheet-iron floor above it ; then add the eighteen inches of brick 

 wall above the iron floor ; we get a total height of seven and a half feet from 

 the ground to top of wall. 



But only the furnace needs to be as deep as this, and it can be placed in a 

 pit at one end of the drier. The brick walls back of the furnace do not need 

 to go so far down by perhaps two feet. The smoke pipe leaving the furnace 

 close to its top can rest on a brick lying on top of the ground, so the part of 

 the heating chamber holding the long flues may be shallower, thus saving 

 some expense in masonry. The top of the brick wall should be level all the 

 way around and even with the floor of the house, so tHe operator can easily 

 handle the trays on the upper track. Do not insert woodwork of any kind into 

 the brickword. 



Lay 2x4 inch sills on top of the brick walls all around the four sides. Cut 

 your upright studding of 2x4 joists six and a half feet high, spaced two feet 

 apart, and nail a 2x4 plate on top. This is for the two long sides. The ends 

 of the drying chamber are to be supplied with close-fitting doors. Nail sur- 

 faced matched lumber on the inner face of the studding. These boards had 

 better be of redwood, so as not to gum up the trays with pitch. 



These two side walls should be perfectly straight, plumb and level and at 

 equal distance apart at all points, so the trays will work true and not bind or 

 slip off the tracks. Nail to these walls tracks or slides made of strips one 

 and one-half inches square. Fasten to these tracks wheels, known to the hard- 

 ware men as "sash rollers," one inch in diameter and spaced ten inches apart 

 along the track. Cut a little notch in the edge of the track, so the wheel can 

 turn freely, with the big side of the wheel upward. Put twelve of these tracks 

 on each wall, spaced six inches apart, beginning six inches from the ceiling to 

 the top of the first track, then six inches to top of next track, etc. One strong 

 16 penny wire nail driven into each stud will hold these tracks securely. Fasten 

 the wheels with screws to the track on a work bench before nailing them to 

 the walls. 



Nail matched lumber on top of the plates from side to side for a ceiling. 

 This wooden shell will have to be braced from the outside so it can stand 

 up firmly with its load of fruit. 



The ventilator or exhaust flue should be about two by three feet inside 

 and extend about twenty feet above the top of the drier. Build it against the 

 side o'f the drier, resting on top of the brick wall, close to the front end of 

 the drier. 



The smoke pipe must be carried by a suitable elbow from its position above 

 the furnace through the side brick wall to a point under the center of the 

 ventilator, thence up through it to the top. A sheet-iron weather cap on top 

 should protect the ventilator and smoke pipe. Make the bottom of the ven- 

 tilator where smoke pipe enters, air tight to ensure good draft. Provide caps 

 or covers at the elbows to facilitate cleaning out the soot. 



On the side of the drying chamber, at the bottom, cut a hole into the ven- 

 tilator for the passage of the damp air from the fruit into the ventilator. This 

 opening should be the shape of a right angled triangle, in such position as 

 though the bottom cover of the side wall were being cut off. The bottom and 

 perpendicular side of opening are to be three feet long. The lower tracks go 

 past this opening to carry trays to the door. Some kind of a small guide 

 rail should be placed to prevent the corners of the trays from striking against 

 the edge of opening. The trays are to be one-half inch shorter than the drier 



