To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] Apple grinder
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 01:52:31 -0500
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...