My new Apple Chopper

[OtisT]

Some time ago I did have a crazy idea of a rolling press made out of one or two concrete rollers made using paint cans as molds but haven't yet really done any planning. I originally got the idea after seeing an instructable where someone embedded screws in a stainless steel paint can, put in a shaft and filled it with concrete to make an apple grinder. I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head like runaway super balls most of the time. I tend not to really plan things, Ideas just tumble around in my mind until I begin acting on them and they evolve.
I did see where someone made something similar to what I was thinking to act as a grain mill or something like that and I do think it could be turned into an automatic apple press pretty easily but that's an idea for way down the road, maybe even after I finish the porch

You need a welder, my friend.

[The Baker]

I thought perhaps a heavy wheel -and- tyre on say a stub axle. With or without a spring. With maybe a screw adjustment to the pressure.
Crushing the fruit that sits in a large (tractor?) tyre cut in half from top to bottom, turning on a turn-table....??

Geoff

[Bushman]

Cranky, after watching the video for a second time I am wondering if having bearings on the shaft would help.

[cranky]

You need a welder, my friend.

Yes I do, and great big shed or barn and land to plant all my fruit trees on and winning lottery numbers I just don't have a whole lot of space right now

I thought perhaps a heavy wheel -and- tyre on say a stub axle. With or without a spring. With maybe a screw adjustment to the pressure.
Crushing the fruit that sits in a large (tractor?) tyre cut in half from top to bottom, turning on a turn-table....??

Geoff

I was thinking a couple of large elongated cogs that the chopped apples fall into then it gets crushed between the intermeshing gears

Cranky, after watching the video for a second time I am wondering if having bearings on the shaft would help.

I know it could really use some proper bearings but I haven't yet been able to find good sealed 1/2" bearings at an affordable price, which is why I am currently making due with the wooden bushings. When I do find the bearings I want I will probably buy them but I have started saving up for some upgrades on the truck and a paint job ( another thing I could use a welder for) and that is really cutting into my stilling funds.

[raketemensch]

Oh, cranky, I’m sure you’ll find a way to hook up some gears to the end of that chopper and drive the press with the 3/4hp motor so that you can chop and press 1,000 pounds of apples per hour.

After all, Yeast is the mother of invention.

[cranky]

Oh, cranky, I’m sure you’ll find a way to hook up some gears to the end of that chopper and drive the press with the 3/4hp motor so that you can chop and press 1,000 pounds of apples per hour.

After all, Yeast is the mother of invention.

I like that Idea and have thought about using one of the electric wheelchair motors I salvaged a while back to drive a jack screw, or maybe a couple of scissor jacks I have because they are reversible and pretty strong motors, but I saw a video of someone using one of those Harbor Freight air operated hydraulic jacks on a huge press and I think that's the route I plan on going in the future. Although I am starting to think about a couple of rotating toothed concrete cylinders that mesh together just under the chopper with a conveyor that lifts the apples up to feed into the chopper and another one at the bottom that carries the spent pomace away...but I need to finish that porch first

[raketemensch]

I personally am really digging the repurposed washing machine idea. Chop, press and pump in one go, save the pomace for further pressing.

[Soft batch]

Finally got my version of your chopper built, a little disappointed in the results. It chops them into 1/4" chunks as opposed to a paste like whizbang garbage disposal does. I may end up taking some blades out and using it as a pre-chopper to the sink disposal. I only have it temporarily rigged up to try it out (no feeder trough) Ran a half a bucket of drops.
I made the body out of a stainless fire extinguisher, used 3/8" stainless all-thread as the shaft, with nylon replacement blades for a weedwacker. Above the blades (not shown) I made a serrated vertical blade out of stainless that will pre-trim large apples so they flow through. I made a support bushing using a 1/2" copper over a 3/8" brass pipe at the bottom of the shaft to keep centered and steady. This is all powered by a 1/3hp 1750 RPM motor.

Blade setup - Currently I have 24 blades

view from bottom

Temporary setup for testing.

[cranky]

Soft batch, that looks real good I like the fire extinguisher. I'm wondering how well those nylon blades are going to stand up to the apples. I have also noticed the flat blades in my bigger chopper don't chop as fine as the pitched blades in the smaller one and neither is going to chop anywhere near as fine as a garbage disposal, or my old method of using a food processor. However I have found that as long as the everything is pretty well chopped the loss of juice is petty negligible. I haven't done an actual test yet but I'm considering chopping and pressing a batch, then running a sample through a food processor and repressing in my little press to see exactly how much is being missed but I doubt it is very much. In my case I don't think it would be enough to bother with the extra time and effort it would take. That also brings up one of the main reasons I personally don't like the whizbzng, mainly because it grinds the seeds which can add a bit of cyanide to the mix. My understanding is it isn't very much but I don't like to add any if I can avoid it, plus I've read it can add a bitterness.

One thing I have been considering with mine is adding some vertical pieces like angles or perhaps screws sticking up to add a bit more shredding ability but in my case the speed more than compensates for the little bit if juice i may be missing by not chopping as fine.

[cob]

cranky yesterday at the scrappy I thought about you. in the stainless bin

was a 4' long piece of tubing 12.5" outside and 11" inside. I didn't weigh it,

but 3/4" wall tubing would not dent.

I only posted this to see if I could make you drool a little

[cranky]

cranky yesterday at the scrappy I thought about you. in the stainless bin

was a 4' long piece of tubing 12.5" outside and 11" inside. I didn't weigh it,

but 3/4" wall tubing would not dent.

No 3/4 wall would do the trick for sure but would probably be very expensive even at scrap prices.

I only posted this to see if I could make you drool a little

Mission accomplished

[cranky]

Today I processed 13 buckets of apples, thats somewhere between 250 and 300 lbs. My wife refused to use the super chopper and insisted on using the little chopper. Because the little chopper broke a set of blades last time, it is not chopping as fine as it can.

When I was finished pressing I did a little experiment. I broke out my little press and took one of the used bags of pomace, loaded it in the little press and pressed as hard as it would go. The results were 0.5 cup of juice. So figuring that as lost juice due to inefficiency of the press itself, since I had 22 press bags full that comes to approximately 0.68 gallons lost due to inefficiency.

I then took the pomace and ground it up finely in the food processor to simulate a garbage disposal, or my old method. I then reloaded it back into the press. This yielded 2.25 cups which is actually a fairly significant amount. 2.25 cups per bag over 22 bags comes to about 3 gallons lost due to the chop itself.

There are some factors that would have reduced this amount for me if I were doing a finer chop. When I do a finer chop I core the apple to prevent chopping the seeds. I personally don't want broken seeds in the mix. Some people are fine with broken seeds but I'm not. So I probably would have gotten only about 1.5 to 2 more gallons if I went through the extra work to get a finer chop. While this may still be a significant amount it would take me significantly more time and effort to do a fine chop and given that my yield was 15 gallons Vs a potential max of 18.6. I think given the overall speed and ease with the chopper and bigger press Vs the old method, I can live with what I got. I do plan on replacing those broken blades which will make the chop finer and maybe work on improving the super chopper to give a finer chop but if the wife won't use it I don't know if there is much point in doing any more to it.

[Soft batch]

Soft batch, that looks real good I like the fire extinguisher. I'm wondering how well those nylon blades are going to stand up to the apples.

Processed 12+ 5 gallon buckets today to net 25 gallons - lost 1 blade. I did a two stage chop - once through the new chopper (about 5 minutes a bucket) then through the whizbang disposal. The pre-chopper was a huge time saver! The Gala's got shredded fairly well, but the winesap's (harder apple) were pretty course. It was very noisy - after the first couple buckets I decided I needed to put the ear muffs on.

One thing I have been considering with mine is adding some vertical pieces like angles or perhaps screws sticking up to add a bit more shredding ability but in my case the speed more than compensates for the little bit if juice i may be missing by not chopping as fine.

I have one vertical blade perpendicular to the feed hole to pre-cut the apples, seems to work well.

All-in-all, I am going to keep using it as a first step - cuts the Mrs. chopping time way down. Her primary focus now is to weed/cut out the worms and bad bruises.

[cranky]

Winter, such as it is, has come to the PNW, which means no more fruit to process It also means it is time to start thinking about improvements to equipment. I wasn't really planning on doing much but then a couple days ago I stumbled upon some .125 thick aluminum in the scrap bin at work and just couldn't help myself, I instantly began thinking about the possibilities. I've been thinking about adding more blades for better chopping and redesigning the blades to either pitch them so the apples bounce around more or adding screws to make them shred better or stringing safety wire between blades to make it chop into more bits or changing the shape of the blades altogether or even doing all three. Whatever I decide I want them to be much better balanced than the current ones used in the super chopper.

So today I had some free time and set about thinking about improvements. I began by prototyping the shape of the new blades. It didn't take all that much time but it did take all that I had and it took 3 blades to get the design I like. So here are the 3 blades I made today. the bottom one is the finished design. They are all actually very well balanced and I think will result in much smoother overall operation.

My plans over the next few weeks are to make several sets of these curved blades, I will probably serrate some if not all and be very careful about the balancing. I will also make some plain straight blades, probably also serrated with screws through them to act as shredders and others that will have safety wire string between them. The real problem is it will be July before I can seriously test anything and then it will be too late to make any changes.

[cranky]

I managed to find some more time today to continue working on blades. I changed the design again and am pretty happy with this design. It's very symmetrical, well balanced and easy to adjust the balance if necessary. I can't fit as many into a sheet of aluminum but at the moment there is plenty of it so I don't mind if it makes them work better.

So here is a picture of the 6 blades I made today.

At this rate I will have a whole set made withing a couple of weeks.

[cranky]

Today I I found some stainless steel I found a 11.5" x 9" piece of .100 and a 18" x 16" piece of .063. Now the problem is the design of the blades. If I go with my second curved design, which I really like, it requires 2" x 11" so it reduces the total number of blades I can get out of these to 4 ea .100 and 11 ea .063. If I do the the other curved blade I can probably get 20 total and if I just cut them straight I should be able to get 31 so sheer numbers might win out on this one, maybe make them straight but then scallop them to give more surface area and help it rip through the apples.

[cranky]

I thought I would update you guys on my progress today.

As you know I found some stainless steel and these past 2 days I've been working on making blades out of it. so here's what I did
This first one is what I started with, a piece of 11.5"x9"x.100" stainless steel

I then cut 9 blades out of it

Sharpened and polished them

Did a rough check of the balance

Then one of the guys I work with offered to tig weld them for me so I gratefully accepted his offer, so here they are welded in pairs

There is still some balancing work to do But they are pretty close to finished
Only 22 more to go

[cranky]

Today there wasn't much progress on the new blades, I got distracted making some new jewelry for the wife for Christmas I did bet the blanks cut out from the bigger sheet of .063

That stuff sure cuts easier that the .100 on the band saw. It should also be easier to sharpen. I got 23 blade blanks out of that sheet and the guy who tiged the first 8 into 4 pairs is willing to do these so they will make an additional 11 sets plus one extra of each which may also be welded together. I guess if you counted each cutting surface that would make 60 blades and if I go ahead and add in the other 2 that would be 64 total cutting edges. I may also go ahead and add in the aluminum blades or add some screws or safety wire to this insane little contraption to see if I can get a finer shredding ability.

[cranky]

Got 8 more blades made today they still need welded together but there will be time for that another day. I'm planning on taking the super chopper apart in the next few days and probably haul it in to work and see about doing something to stiffen up the chute, I'm thinking about rolling out some bands of the .125 aluminum and epoxying them onto it since the epoxy will be on the outside I don't think it would be a problem. I might rivet them on instead or fasten vertical strips. I really don't know but I'll figure out something. I think I also need to see if I can locate some sealed bearings to help it run a bit smoother.

[cranky]

Today I finished the last 6 blades, cut, sharpened and polished, now they are ready to be welded when the welder finds the time. Over my last weekend he got the rest of them done and only got one blade welded backwards, which isn't a big deal, I just sharpened the other side. I also managed to get 3 of the welded ones roughly balanced. Of course my method is completely unscientific, I place the blades on the tip of an ink pen and eyeballed it then dressed the heaviest blade until the whole thing sat level. I figure that is good enough for now. I'll do the same with the rest of them, and hopefully get the super chopper taken apart this weekend, take the chute in and start doing the things I need to do with it. Maybe even start looking for some proper bearings rather than a couple pieces of oak with holes drilled in them. I may have to do some adjusting on the length of the blades which would require re-balancing but I think things are coming along nicely.

Things left to do, balance the rest of the blades, make sure they fit the diam of the chute, drill larger holes for the shaft, mount them on the shaft and mount the shaft into the chute and at some point stiffen up the chute. Not that much really and a whole 6 months to do it. Of course I also have to try to find time to rebuild the press while I'm at it

[cranky]

Today I found out that over my weekend the welder got the rest of my blades done. Thursday I got the super chopper broken down and yesterday brought the chopping parts to work and took everything apart. Today I managed to get all the blades rough balanced and began stepping the holes up so they can be put on the shaft. The welder and I discussed some ideas about how to stack them to be most effective. What we think might work well is to start off with a single blade, then some space to allow things to tumble a bit, then a pair of blades, a space, then two pairs stacked together, space, two more pairs, another space then a stack of 9 blades arranged as a fan which will be impossible to pass through in large chunks.
something like this

Other things I did today were work on rolling some strips of .125 aluminum to reinforce the stainless chute with. These really stiffened it up and should work well. My plan is to simply bond them to the chute or possibly attach them with a few screws. and possibly add some vertical reinforcements as well.

[raketemensch]

No apple is safe.

[cranky]

No apple is safe.

Apples, pears, fingers, raccoons...I dont think anything will be very safe around this thing

[cranky]

I worked on the little tedious things today. I cut twp plates of the .125 that I plan on using to mount the motor to instead of the 3/4 inch plywood I have been using and worked on attaching the hoops. I decided to attach the hoops using stainless steel screws. I cut some heavy aluminum angles to attach the cross pieces and have started looking for the right flanged bearings to try to keep the whole thing running smoother. I have also been working out exactly how to get the shaft properly centered. That actually went well I used the seam as a starting point, wrapped a piece of paper around it and marked it where they met. I then offset the starting point by a couple of inches, folded the paper in four and marked each crease. Then wrapped the paper around at the top and marked each of the 4 points, then wrapped it around the bottom and marked the 4 points again, that should keep it centered and give me perfect alignment between the top and bottom. After I get the 4 angles attached I plan on using those 12 inch calipers to find exact center for the through hole for the shaft.

One problem I have run into is the 1/2" step on my stepped bit is worn out so I can't drill the holes in the blades bigger than 7/16". I need to go buy another one so I can finish the blades.

[cranky]

I tested it yesterday. It still needs a few tweeks but here is the newest video

[raketemensch]

Too bad you don't have those turbines, they'd process a few hundred pounds of apples in about 30 seconds.

What're you going to do? Can the motor be slowed down?

[Soft batch]

I’ll gladly take a few of those blades off you hands!

I see you upped the rpm’s on the motor too. I’d be worried about your safety with the relatively thin SS tube if a blade broke at those speeds!
Why not put a cover on the back side of the feed to keep the overspray down?

[cranky]

Too bad you don't have those turbines, they'd process a few hundred pounds of apples in about 30 seconds.

That would sure be something cool to watch.

What're you going to do? Can the motor be slowed down?

I don't know any way of slowing down an AC motor other than offset it and add pulleys, which I don't really want to do. I'm sure that motor was not turning that kind of speed last year. I suppose it is totally possible the bushings I used last year were binding and causing it to run slower or my power supply is somehow different at work than at home, but it seems to have crazy speed this year. Even with a single blade instead of the crossed pair the apples never make it past the first blade without being totally pulverized. I'm planning on bringing in the motor off the little chopper and seeing how that works out even though I know at 1/3rd H.P. it is under powered. I'm thinking maybe with the new blade design and bearings it won't need all that much power.

I’ll gladly take a few of those blades off you hands!

That may be a possibility in the future depending on a few factors. If I keep this motor and can't slow it down a bit I certainly won't be needing all 15 sets but I am considering cutting some down into 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 lengths to maybe help take chunks out. I'm also considering drilling some holes in the top one and adding screws to bite the apples better to help increase speed of destruction. The apples never make it past the first blade so chopping time has actually increased in spite of the increased speed and improved blade design.

I see you upped the rpm’s on the motor too. I’d be worried about your safety with the relatively thin SS tube if a blade broke at those speeds!
Why not put a cover on the back side of the feed to keep the overspray down?

My intended speed was actually between 1200 and 2000 RPM. This motor is a mystery motor with no data tag I got off an old air compressor I found on the side of the road. All I have from the compressor data tag was horsepower but not RPM. I know it was slower last year because some of the apples actually made it through in thin slices so I don't know whats happened this year other than maybe it was binding up last year and the bearings are now letting it run free.

A scatter shield to prevent injury in the event of a catastrophic blade failure has been planned all along with this project. I just need to find the metal or plywood to make it. I had planned on using some of that .125 aluminum but someone emptied the scrap bin before I got it so I'm keeping my eye out and when the opportunity presents itself will get something or go buy some 3/4" plywood and use that.

I had put a cover on the back side to keep the overspray down

I removed it for filming purposes. Moving blades lower helped that a lot as well. When I first fired it up I had the first set of blades only about 6 inches down and it made a terrible mess. If I keep this motor I will probably remove quite a few blades and only have a set at the very bottom which should greatly reduce the amount of spray.

[raketemensch]

It could be the weight of the new blades bringing more momentum and working like a flywheel, making the motor more efficient.

[cranky]

Today I managed to acquire a 3/4 H.P. 1710 RPM motor that should be exactly what the chopper needs, fast enough to chop properly, slow enough to chop properly and powerful enough to not jam. I already have it mounted on the stand, I do need to turn the shaft down, because it has a 5/8" shaft but that isn't any big deal. I was hoping to get to the store that had 3# bags of red delicious apples for $1.27 but didn't manage and I have to take it apart tomorrow and get it out of the shop for a bit but I'm sure this will do the job just fine.