WEST GUILFORD, Vt. — A relatively new invention is going into the woods this sugaring season that eliminates the need for that clunky tubing tool, the necessary evil when it comes to running lines.  

It also replaces blow torches and thermoses filled with hot water.  And never again will a sugarmaker have to chew on the end of a line to connect over fittings.

The Hot-End System was invented in 2011 by longtime friends and sugarmakers Ted Butterfield of West Guilford, Vt. and Chuck Parzick of Los Angeles who comes back east to sugar with Butterfield every season.  The device is catching on with sugarmakers and more and more of them are going into the woods this winter for installations.

 It was during a cold snap four years ago when Butterfield and Parzick were stringing up new lines that their frustration with their tubing tools reached its max.

 “It was cold and we had scissor hands,” Parzick said.  “After about the fourth time dropping the tool in the snow we thought ‘There’s got to be a better way.’”

Parzick is an inventor and business owner by trade and after conjuring up ideas of getting the ends of tubing hot, he went back to California and started tinkering with a prototype.

The Hot End System was born. 

The Hot End System allows the sugarmaker to make connections with just his bare hands by heating the tubing ends so they easily slide over barbed fittings.  

“The device relaxes the tubing so it slides up over the fitting,” Parzick said.  “The tubing wants to contract back to the original size and that’s where the bite comes from.  It doesn’t deform the tubing, it relaxes it.”

During a recent demonstration for The Maple News at Butterfield’s farm in West Guilford in the southeastern corner of Vermont, Butterfield and his son Carl were easily making connections over fittings on a below-zero day and with no tubing tool in their hands or on their belts.

Butterfield was running new 3/16 lines up a hill behind some barns.  With a cutting tool on a tether to his jacket he’d simply splice the line and jam an end onto the Hot End device, wait four seconds and then slip the end over a fitting with his bare hands, making a strong leak-proof connection that holds vacuum with no trouble.

Easy peasy.

The heating chamber is powered by a light-weight, rechargeable battery. Heat is transferred to the tubing by the chamber’s hot solution of glycerin and water. The glycerin is produced by hydrolysis which makes it food safe and approved for use in the production of organic maple syrup, Parzick said.

The belt and pouch system, which features a quick-release buckle, has convenient compartments for the heating chamber, the battery, and a refill bottle. The light-weight system is easily worn on the left side or right side and is equipped with holes for tie-downs and drainage, Parzick said. 

The battery’s output depends on the temperature outside in the woods. 

Parzick and Butterfield say the battery life at 30 degrees will last about 3 hours.  Many sugarmakers who are using the system carry two batteries on their pouches to last them the better part of a day, Parzick said.

Parzick said the secret to the success of the device is that it heats up the tubing just enough so as not to deform it.  The tubing end will snap back to original shape as soon as it hits cold air.

The two men have tested the hold of connections in all kinds of conditions and claim they will stay true eight to ten seasons, holding vacuum without any problems.

Parzick said the biggest benefit to the sugarmaker is the freedom. 

“There’s a real benefit to having both hands free in the woods,” he said.

February 2015