My new Apple Chopper

[cranky]

Wicked cool.
Your vision+followthrough is impressive!

I sure hope safety backups are keeping pace with improvements!

Thank you.
Safety is a biggie here because this thing has the potential to do a lot of damage quickly and I want Mrs Cranky to be able to operate it. I am going to add a switch so it can be quickly turned on and off, we have already discussed which side she will prefer to use so I can locate the switch on that side. I will also be adding a piece that covers the shaft from the front so there is no risk of getting hair or fingers or anything else getting tangled up in the shaft. I plan on covering the back half of the opening to keep it closed off so things cant get in or come out, the apples have a real tendency yo bounce around a lot. I am also considering some sort of breaker located on the chopper although it is currently being run on a dedicated circuit.

[cranky]

Impressive !
Another way to prevent the clogging may be to make the outlet a slot in the side of the cylinder
Centrifugal force will fling the product out like a regular garden mulcher and you won't have to rely on gravity to keep the outlet open

I never even thought about that but I bet it would work just fine.

[cranky]

Today I brought the chopper into work to fix the clogging issue. I began by doubling the size of the slots.

Then I set it up with the chute and a bucket of apples to see how that worked. It worked quite well until I fed too many apples in at once then it clogged and jammed. So I said screw it and cut big freaking holes in the bottom.

This fixed the problem and made it so I could run it quite fast and the results look like this

This stuff comes out just short of apple sauce and still no broken seeds that I could find. If somehow an apple should bind it can now fall all the way through and won't stop the blades.

I will be bringing this back once more to work to clean up those raggedy cuts and make it less likely to cut me. I took a pretty nice chunk out of my finger carrying it out to the car so I think I may add some handles and will have to remember to wear leather or Kevlar gloves when I carry it.

[Oldvine Zin]

Cool

[cranky]

Well, I think I'm going to call it finished. I still have some little tweaks to do but it works well, even with larger apples, maybe a little too well. Much to my surprise still no broken seeds, but it chops the pulp so fine my tiny little press has problems. A bigger press will solve them. The wife actually enjoyed helping with the chopping too.
Now here is the video.

[pythonshine]

As you may or may not know Cranky. I make HDPE sheets. Do you think the drum could be made from it, or would it cause an issue? I understand with the bucket there was an issue with scoring the walls. I was thinking the bearing would solve that issue. I was thinking on keeping the bottom stainless. Just some more ideas...

[cranky]

As you may or may not know Cranky. I make HDPE sheets. Do you think the drum could be made from it, or would it cause an issue? I understand with the bucket there was an issue with scoring the walls. I was thinking the bearing would solve that issue. I was thinking on keeping the bottom stainless. Just some more ideas...

I didn't know you made that. I think that would be perfect for it. I might be a bit concerned about blade containment in the event of a catastrophic failure but really don't think it would be an issue. In truth 1650 or even 2000 RPM isn't all that fast, now if it was being run with something high speed like above 5,000 RPM I would worry more. As far as the bottom goes I have now found that the only reason for having anything at the bottom is for the bearing to keep the shaft from walking. Because it chops so fine, in order to prevent clogging I had to hack holes big enough that an apple can pass right through. I will be removing just about everything in the bottom except the cross piece which holds the bearing block, A couple times we managed to feed too many apples in and had it jam but turning it off and giving the shaft a twist by hand let the offending apples fall through and we were able to start right back up. I think keeping the bottom as open as possible is necessary. The bearing does solve the issue with blade walk and gouging.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Such a cool, effective machine. I want to start doing apples just to have an excuse to build one.

[cranky]

Such a cool, effective machine. I want to start doing apples just to have an excuse to build one.

I'm surprised that where you live you don't already do apples. This chopper is very effective too. it does spit a bit of apple out the top but not all that much. I mentioned that it actually chopped it too fine for my little press. On the little press the screw shaft meets the press plate at a point and is not attached. This allows the press plate to tilt if the apples are chopped too fine which results in frequently having to back the whole thing off and adjust the apples and adds a lot of time to the pressing. So I really need a bigger press with a way to keep the plate flat so it doesn't get off kilter when pressing. The chop that comes out the bottom really is close to apple sauce.

[raketemensch]

What kills me is that this is SUCH an "Autumn" thing to me, and here you are going to town in early July.

[cranky]

What kills me is that this is SUCH an "Autumn" thing to me, and here you are going to town in early July.

I know it seems strange, we tend to think of apples as a September only crop but there are over 5,000 varieties of apples, many maturing much earlier or later than the average commercial apples we grew up with. This was also a major apple producing region before development pushed the apple producers to the other side of the mountain. Doing a little research I'm pretty sure these are Perrine Yellow Transparent apples ( http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/perrine-transparent" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow )which come in late July in most places but since we have a much milder climate we tend to get apples a bit earlier than the rest of the country so early July is about right. This tree predates the house by many years, looking at http://www.historicaerials.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow I can see this tree was a well established tree in 1964. I'm thinking since I have seen several of these trees around that the early trees either had a market advantage in the 50's or people in more rural areas planted them so they had early fruit so they could put it up before vegetables came in. There is also an older red apple tree not far away that I have permission to pick that will come ripe within 2 weeks. The guy with green apple said the red in the back comes ripe about 2 weeks after the green has dropped so I think it is the same variety. Since I got 300#s off this tree with probably another 100 left to go I am estimating the red one in the back probably has 500#s on it. The wife bounces between happy and unhappy about the fruit because she wants the porch finished and the yard and garage cleaned up and the kitchen finished and so many other things I should be doing instead of playing with apples but I can't help myself. Today I am trying to get some of that honeydo list done so she won't be mad tomorrow when I go over there and pick another 100#s of apples

[Hound Dog]

The wife bounces between happy and unhappy about the fruit because she wants the porch finished .......

PORCH!?!? You're still on that with all the other crap you have been working on?!?! I bow down to you oh Emperor of Procrastination!

[MichiganCornhusker]

The wife bounces between happy and unhappy about the fruit because she wants the porch finished .......

PORCH!?!? You're still on that with all the other crap you have been working on?!?! I bow down to you oh Emperor of Procrastination!

Post by cranky » Sat Apr 04, 2015 10:04 pm

I have been busy building for several months now but the wife says a new kitchen and front porch take precedence.

All hail the Emperor!

[Hound Dog]

[cranky]

OK you guys are right I procrastinate a bit. You can't rush perfection My wife actually found your comments funny. The porch, kitchen and bathroom are all just down to trim work, something I always take forever on because I hate whats available at the store or it costs too damn much so I usually make my own which takes forever. I have been turning my own spindles in my pathetically old, outdated Shopmate saber lathe using equally old outdated gouges. Today I have been working on making trim work that will make my wife very happy but she is picky and doesn't like cookie cutter. Our tastes run more to Victorian style and that takes time. A little while ago my pathetically old outdated craftsman table saw crapped out, but I bought it 6 years ago at a garage sale cheap so I really can't complain. We really need to save this sort of conversation for the fruity goodness thread or Tater might get the idea that this thread has drifted too far and needs moved to off topic and I don't want that to happen to another one.

Also a large portion of what I build is done at work not at home.

[cranky]

After that last run I was going to cut away most of the bottom of the apple chopper so I took it to work with me. Once I got it to where I was about to do the cutting I decided to just remove the bottom plate entirely and only keep the cross bracing and bearing.

I didn't even keep the original bearing block, I figure the cross brace can do that just fine. After all the bearing is only there to prevent the blades from drifting, with the direct drive setup I adjusted the shaft so it doesn't actually rest on on the block the shaft just extends into it a little way to keep it straight. I think this will work just fine and be much easier to clean.

[Hound Dog]

No clog system there

[cranky]

No clog system there

Yep, if this thing clogs I have a serious problem We'll see how well it works in a week or two. The wife says no more chopping til the big press is finished. One of the guys I work with happened to have a table saw in the trunk of his car today (Go figure ) and noticed I was looking at saws on the interweb and offered to loan it to me. So I now have a saw to finish the press.

[yakattack]

Woot! Keep it up cranky, I'm living vicariously through you atm :p

[cranky]

Woot! Keep it up cranky, I'm living vicariously through you atm :p

It's fun to do this goofy stuff I have been trying to get over and pick even more apples. I worked on the press today I think I have a game plan there but don't really plan on making a build thread. For now I am going with the kind that has slats or racks that you load a bag (Cheese) of apple pulp into then stack another rack on top. I have the first one made but ran into problems with the borrowed saw. The blade was very dull which wouldn't be a big deal except it is missing the backup wrench and I can't get the damn blade off. I can't find the wrench for the saw I have either so I am just going to buy a new saw and be done with it. Until then I will try to accumulate apples and be ready for a big day of chopping and pressing when I get the press done.

[cranky]

Yesterday my wife and I ran the chopper and new press. With the completely open bottom the chopper cuts the apples into larger pieces but not so large that they are a problem. So I am very happy with it and it will remain like this for the foreseeable future.

[bitter]

Awesome!!!

[cranky]

I did some further mods to the chopper a while back and just got it back together today so I think I need to talk about it a bit.

First thing is I bought another set of blades and added them in the hopes of getting just a little bit finer chop. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this but it's pretty much the same thing I did with the other blades. This did give me a much finer chop but I did notice an odd sound and much more vibration for a bit on startup but it smoothed out fairly quickly. Then when I scooped the apple pulp out of the bucket I found these

This sort of blade failure was something I was concerned about with the original design using a bucket instead of the stainless steel barrel. I really don't know if a plastic bucket would have withstood this failure but the stainless steel did just fine. However this is something to consider if you are thinking about building one of these.

Another mod I did was to take a a section of plastic bucket cut some grooves in it, wrapped it around the barrel and screwed it together. This makes a sort of skirt that drops down into the catch bucket to act as a shield for the pulp as it exits the barrel.

The reason for this is that the way it was set up there was a gap between the bottom of the barrel and collection bucket. Because of the way the pulp exits the barrel this resulted in a small amount of pulp slinging out and splattering my wife a bit which she found unacceptable. Fortunately this mod works very well and stops the problem.

All in all in spite of the broken blades the chopper made a very fine puree of the apples and doesn't require any other mods, it has handled approximately 1200-1300 LBS of apples without any real problems and should continue to be a good tool for many years to come.

[Shine0n]

Your lucky you put the ss in the chopper! MAN that could've put an end to your season real quick. Glad to hear that it wasn't worse

I on the other hand have decided to use juice concentrate for my first apple brandy, my work has ended the apples before I could start and now they're all gone my work load had completely stopped. Wow!!!
Anyway, the problem I am now dealing with is to find the concentrate with no preservatives. If I happen to find it, that's how I will get to do this brandy as I want too sooooo badly since reading yours and Jimbos apple threads.

I did find a false bottom to add in my thumper which I will put fresh cut apples on in the vapor path. Now I have a question... what type of apple will be best for the additional flavor? If at all.

The fresh pressed cider is 5.00 a gallon and organic cider is almost 8, that's 60.00 just for the regular stuff. I like the thought of concentrate because of prices but to locate it will be problematic since I live in the middle of nothing and nothing.

I love my sf and rum but while my peach, plum and strawberry brandy ages I thought of going to the ABC and buy an apple brandy to get a idea of what it tastes like since I've never had any other than the ones I mentioned which are right good.

Any luck with the engine man yet? I'd be throwing a fit if I were you if not.

[cranky]

I've been thinking about what happened that caused the blade failure and pretty much it happened to the top blade that the tips bend up. The break happened when I overloaded it and it bogged down and it was clean breaks on the same pair.

Any luck with the engine man yet? I'd be throwing a fit if I were you if not.

As far as that and the other stuff, I'm trying not to piss Tater off anymore by getting off topic so I really can't say anything about the rest of your post, at least on this thread, even though I do consider the truck to be apple equipment.

[Shine0n]

My apologies, I'll keep on topic
I actually forgot to click back over to the fruity goodness thread when I posted.

[cranky]

My apologies, I'll keep on topic
I actually forgot to click back over to the fruity goodness thread when I posted.

That's OK I already posted a response over on the Fruity goodness thread

[cranky]

Fruit season has come to an end and my truck is still broke but in a position that is out of my hands. I'm desperately trying to accept what I cannot change and be patient and not get angry or depressed over that whole deal so I am trying to concentrate on other things that I need or want to do. Of course as usual most of my free time is at work so that's where my mind starts to wander. I don't like to let my mind wander because it is too little to be out on it's own and often gets lost causing me to waste a lot of time looking for it, so I need to keep it occupied with various projects. One thing I am considering is buying some 4" sight glass tubes from Still Dragon and rebuilding the Muggles into a normal flute but I am actually very happy with the way the Muggles already works so don't really want to change anything. Since I have a couple plates left over from the Muggles Too build I'm considering making a single plate Mini Muggles just to play around with. I want to modify the apple press to handle more apples in a pressing but that is just a matter of re-cutting the vertical parts and drilling a few holes so that is a job for home, not work. All of those things are also subjects for different threads, not this one.

What is a subject for this thread is my apple chopper. I have now successfully run the apple chopper through an entire season, processing between 1,100 and 1,200 LBS of apples plus some pears with only a single set of broken blades as an issue. Now that apple season is over I am starting to think of the things I might like to improve on it. In truth I am quite happy with the chopper and I'm pretty confident it can handle as much as 500 LBS an hour but I have been thinking "Can I get it up 1,000 LBS an hour?"

Then I had to ask myself "Self", I asked, "Do we really need to chop 1,000 LBS of apples per hour?"

Myself says to me "Me", Myself says, "it isn't a matter of need it is a matter of can."

"But the press can't handle 1,000 LBS an hour"

"That's beside the point, besides, you are going to make it handle probably 200-300 LBS in a single pressing, maybe more, that's only 3-5 press loads to reach 1,000 LBS, certainly you can handle that in a day? You also like to let it rest after chopping and before pressing anyway."

Well I certainly couldn't argue with that logic so I started thinking about exactly what I wanted to accomplish.

First was to see if I could make it even cheaper to build. I'm happy with the fineness of the pulp so I want to keep it at least that fine.

Second, I think the biggest thing slowing me down is the 1/3HP motor. If I feed apples in too fast it causes the motor to bog down so that I have to feed them in at a somewhat slow rate, not that one or two minutes per bucket is really that slow. In truth what slows me down the most is changing catch buckets and reloading the hopper/chute.

That brings me to #3, The chute can only handle 1.5-2 buckets of apples, so it has to be reloaded every couple minutes. A taller hopper to hold more apples is definitely on the list.

#D, The last thing on the list is the barrel/drum, I would like it to be slightly larger so the opening to feed the apples in can handle the larger apples a bit better. Right now the opening can just barely fit the largest apples, they actually have to be forced to get them through. That's not really a big deal but I like to just roll them down the chute and watch them fall in.

So now I have the want list made up, I started thinking about blades. As luck would have it I found some scrap pieces of thick aluminum sheet. Ideally I would make the blades out of stainless steel but I don't have any, well maybe I do somewhere but what I have is soft SS and I need hard to make blades out of and the aluminum is free, so the aluminum will have to do for now.

So I figured I would make the blades to fit a 10" barrel, since I plan on making it out of SS ducting if I can find some, my alternate plan is to make it out of a SS trash can. As luck has it Home Depot is going to have a SS trash can set on sale for $20 on Black Friday. I think this may give me exactly what I need, although from what I've seen they run about 12" diameter so I may have to make new longer blades. Anyway, I cut, sharpened and serrated 17 blades the other day, I plan on making more as I can but really 17 is probably enough.

I'm considering how to stack and space them now. I think I may need 21 to stack them how I want but I can come up with more metal if I need to.

For mounting the blades, I plan on buying a 1/2" piece of SS all thread rod and some nuts, The plan currently is to have a piece of PVC on the bottom sticking through the bearing, then a nut, a set of blades, I'm considering as many as 3 on the bottom set, maybe even the bottom 3 sets then 2 for a few more sets, then single blades after that. Each set will have a nut between them to create space between the blades and hopefully hold them to keep them from spinning. Then perhaps another piece of PVC held in place by nuts, to help keep the threads clean, then once again connect to the motor using a piece of hydraulic hose.

To keep the motor from bogging down, I'm thinking about the air compressor I found on the side of the road a while back. The pump itself is shot but the motor is a two or three HP motor and should be able to chop through anything without bogging down, if I can somehow manage to keep the blades from loosening up and freewheeling.

That's about it for the thoughts on my newest redesign of the apple chopper. As I think about it now, I won't even be using any of the parts off the existing one so if this works at only 500 LBS per hour, I can run it along side of the other one and get 1,000 LBS per hour

Then I need to think about getting an air actuated jack to make pressing even easier.

[likker liker]

The apple chopping king. Wow you've really stepped it up this year.

[cranky]

The apple chopping king. Wow you've really stepped it up this year.

The biggest thing slowing me down now is my wife I'm now working on cleaning the yard, finishing the porch and organizing the garage. I think if I can get my stilling/ fermenting area organized the wife may actually be able to park the car in there Seems like a real waste to me but she seems to think people are supposed to actually park cars in garages but if I get her what she wants and make the house look nice she won't get so impatient with me and the apple stuff. I passed up quite a few apples this year to try to make her happy so maybe next year I can hit 100 gallons. I also don't mind loaning the my equipment out to other local members who might want to give apples a go next year. I hope to get over to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up one of those SS trash can sets tomorrow to make the next chopper out of.

Haven't sen you around lately likker liker, Glad you are back around