North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>]

To Don who wrote:
>3.  Of course you can engineer and build your own unit at home.  Claude 
>Jolicoeur of Quebec did that, and is very satisfied with the result. 
>But I suspect that Claude is either a skilled machinist, an engineer, or 
>both.  I wouldn't know where to begin to build a grinder without off-the 
>-shelf parts.  Claude is pretty sure his grinder is faster than a 
>disposal, and one of these days I will load the disposal grinder in the 
>pickup and drive to Quebec for a grind-off with Claude.  Win or lose, at 
>least I would get a nice trip to Quebec, and probably have quite a bit 
>of fun in the process.

Don,
Such a friendly competition would be, in effect, a lot of fun. And yes, I
am a mechanical engineer, but I hired a skilled machinist to do the welding
and turning of the rotor. I did myself the wood job around it.

I will add, to the benefit of Del, that my grinder is based on the original
"Jaffrey" grinder that I first bought. The general proportions are similar,
but there are major differences: the whole rotor is made of welded
stainless steel and is mounted on oversized ball bearings. Then I added a 8
in. pulley on the rotor shaft and installed an electric motor with a small
pulley (2 in). A standard V belt (automotive type) does the job of
transmitting the power.

Unfortunately, I don't have a nice mechanical drawing of the grinder - I
guess this is one of the numerous things I ought to do in the future. And
there are also a few improvements I would like to make...

Finally I will add that both Don and I will loose the competition against
my neighbour who bought last year a 700$ (CDN) italian grinder - a
marvelous machine that runs on 20 Amp 240V (I forget how many HPs, but this
is NOT a washing machine motor)... Grinds a bushell in under 30 seconds,
and the purée obtained is just perfect for pressing.

Claude