Not your average kitchen appliance!

[lovemysan]

This is one of my long list of projects that I've been working on around the house. I haven't had much time to work on the car/gassaving etc because of the project list. Which included a home birth 2/29 and renovating the basement.

I got my grain mill in last week and it only took me about an hour of hand cranking to realize I was going to motorize it. It came equipped with a 12" flywheel with a v belt groove built in. I scrounged the motor and pulleys, bought the bearings from the local grainger store, the wood I scavenged off the road, the belts and shaft I bought locally.

Its a Country Living Mill. It uses large steel burrs for grinding. The current motor is a recycled dryer motor the runs 1750rpms its reduced to 84rpms at the mill.



This is the original pulley that came on the dryer motor. It started life about 9/16" wide 5 ribs. I used a flux core mig welder to add material and reduce its width. I then ran the motor and crudely turned milled it to shape using an angle grinder, dremel, and file. Its now sized for a 3/8" V belt.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Nice. How strong are those things? Just wondering if something like that could eat twigs and bone, for biomass processing... for a methane or turpene producer.

[lovemysan]

Originally Posted by RoadWarrior

Nice. How strong are those things? Just wondering if something like that could eat twigs and bone, for biomass processing... for a methane or turpene producer.

It has a feed system designed for wheat berry sized objects. It requires a different size auger for corn or beans. I would think that a wood chipper would be better for what your doing. I had an old one made by Merrimac that used a flail instead of a cutting blade. It pulverize sticks into pulp if you left in the baffles. If you took out the baffle it merely minced. It kind of a gross thought throwing roadkill into a chipper to make stinky gas.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

How much flour do you get from an hour of cranking? when I was a kid my brothers and I would see how much we could grind in 3 minutes with our Diamont mill, I forget exactly how much we could do, but it was a reasonable amount.
the other day I helped a friend rig up so he could pedal power his small flour mill, it worked pretty well.

For chewing twigs or bone, I would say a cheap hammer mill, like a wood chipper, would be the way to go, I use a garbage disposal for apples for apple cider and it works great, but would be slow going for bone, or wood.

[lovemysan]

Well at 80 rpms I'm getting 8 cups an hour. I'm doing 2 passes to make it easy on the grinder and the wheat. I'm doing a store grade fine grind. I'll gradually adjust to a more coarse grind as my wife learns better how to use the flour.