My new Apple Chopper

[cranky]

I managed to get down to Home Depot yesterday and took advantage of the Black Friday deal to pick up a SS trash can set. I gave the small cans to my son, the big one is now destined to be used for the apple chopper MK V.

The trash can set was $20 which is a lot to me but it gives me some improvements over the MK IV. First it is round, the last one was only roundish. It does have a seam but it is a crimped seam so it shouldn't be a problem, the old one can get bits of pulp and stuff in the seam and if it is oriented wrong it can snag apples and will actually spit a bit of pulp out, not enough to actually matter that much, it was just a bit messy. The dimensions of the trash can I think are actually pretty good. 24" tall and 11" diameter. This means with the 10" blades I have already made I should have about 1/2" of tip clearance. This should allow for a little bit of wobble or wear as it runs, mainly because I don't usually bother too much with precise measurements. It will also give me enough room for even the largest apples I may get my hands on. The 24" length should give me plenty of depth for lots of blades and still have room to keep the apples from bouncing out. I guess while I was there I should have also picked up the all thread rod I will need but that can happen any time, it's not like I will be able to do anything with it any time soon.

[cranky]

Yesterday I managed to get a little free time at work so I managed to get a lot done on the new chopper.

I started by taking the trash can apart which was pretty easy. Then I found a bit of stainless steel in the scrap bin so I made a bottom spreader bar/ support.

I bolted that in place and started stacking blades on a piece of 1/2 inch all-thread rod First 2 nits locked together, then a serrated blade, then another nut, another blade rotated a bit, then another nut and so on until I ran out of blades.

I think there are 20 blades total and I have plenty of room for more if I need it. I doubt I will.
Then I put the stack in the drum to see how it fit and it is actually a very good fit even if there is just a bit more tip space than I would like. The bottom blades are actually much tighter fitting then the rest which I think will work out fine.

Then I made a simple top guide bracket that will keep the blades centered and bolted that in place.

I gave it a spin hooked up to a drill and it seems to be very nicely balanced so I think it will work very well.

Here is a picture of the motor I am planning on using

I can't remember exactly what size it is but I remember it being 2 or 3 H.P., I think it is 3. Either way I figure this will give the power to handle just about any amount of apples I want to throw at it.

Next on the list is a stand to mount it to, mounting brackets, some PVC pipe to protect the all thread and some bushings to prevent wear through the guide spreaders and it will be finished.

[Bushman]

I hope you take a video of this in operation with your assessment.

[cranky]

I hope you take a video of this in operation with your assessment.

No worries there, I took a 30 second video of it yesterday but I plan on doing a full video of it when it is all together and fully functional. The real problem is it will be July before I have a chance to really test it out so the video probably won't be finished until then, unless I can stumble across 1,000 LBS of apples for next to nothing before then I still have those apples I picked on the first but there is only about 3/4 of a bucket so they are most likely destined for Christmas pies rather than test apples. My goal is come summer I will get 300-500 LBS and actually time the run to see what kind of speed I can get out of it.

[bship]

Cranky,

This is one of my favorite threads. Its cool to see the evolution of your chopper. Cant wait to see the upgrade in action.

Good work

[cranky]

Cranky,

This is one of my favorite threads. Its cool to see the evolution of your chopper. Cant wait to see the upgrade in action.

Good work

Me too! It's a shame I have to wait until July to pick more apples to try it. I was doing the math about the July apples I picked this past summer and I figure I picked 900 LBS of apples off two trees. I figure I failed to pick about 500 more LBS. So if I get my act together I think I can do between 1400 and 1700 LBS in July alone next year, which is just crazy to think about. I'm really going to have to get a lot of stuff in order if I want to do that many in a single month. I am also going to have to upgrade the press again to make it taller to handle more at once.

[Soft batch]

The chopping is the time consuming part - I've been quartering and running them through the SS disposer with the wife's help. She protests, but enjoys the output so she helps. I like this chopper idea- I have about nine months before the next harvest to what I can come up with starting with your ideas. Do you think the direct drive is the best place to start?

[cranky]

The chopping is the time consuming part - I've been quartering and running them through the SS disposer with the wife's help. She protests, but enjoys the output so she helps. I like this chopper idea- I have about nine months before the next harvest to what I can come up with starting with your ideas. Do you think the direct drive is the best place to start?

I believe the direct drive is a good solution, it works very well for me. I believe one of the real advantages to the direct drive is it requires no bearings, only bushings. I think if there was a side load on the shaft from a belt drive you would definitely have to use proper bearings. If my motor were slower I would definitely go belt drive to get the speed of the blades faster. 1200RPM is about the bare minimum, faster is better but I think most electric motors these days are around 1600 RPM. I think perhaps the only real problem with the direct drive it it is pretty top heavy but we have already had 35 or 40 MPH winds and it has stood up through them so that doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. Another thing is with the more conventional drum type you can usually put them on top of the press making the setup more compact. That doesn't really matter to me though. I have a 7 or 8 gallon bucket that fits perfectly under the chopper, or I can use 5 gallon buckets and when one fills up just slide it out and slide another one in. I think the biggest advantage so far is the speed, even with the 1/3HP motor it just eats the apples up. The problem with the 1/3HP motor is it is easy to feed the apples in too fast and bog it down or jam it up. When this happens it's just a matter of turning it off, giving the shaft a spin to let the apples drop through and it's ready to go again. I'm pretty sure the big motor won't have that problem. As annoyed as my wife gets at me over the apples, she is the one who actually runs the chopper while I load the hopper and change out buckets and I can barely keep up with her. She actually thinks it's fun to do and likes the time savings. No need to cut up anything in advance like with a whizbang or the Harbor freight, although a lot of my apples are probably small enough to go in the HF one without quartering. The current chopper so far has fit everything I have gotten but some of them had to be forced through the opening, which is why I want to go a little bit bigger. The other reason is that unless the mortar mixer is on close out it can get pretty expensive to buy a bunch of them. I got the metal for the new blades for free, the trash can was $20, the all thread, less than $10 and the nuts $8. I found the motor for free and the wood for the stand is also free. I think I am going to have around $40 in this new one which is cheaper than about anything else I could come up with.

[cranky]

Today I managed to find some time to work on the chopper. I took lots of pictures and hope to get some up tomorrow. Basically the mechanism is done, the blades, the shaft, the cross pieces. I made up some PVC bushings for the shaft through the cross pices to help prevent wear and sheathed the rod in CPVC to protect it. The CPVC slides through the PVC bushings and keeps everything lined up. I then made some metal brackets to attach the barrel to the stand. I have a concern that the barrel is too flimsy for the screws I used but that can be dealt with if it becomes an issue. Basically I want this new one to be easily taken apart so I can clean it easily or disassemble for easy storage. The old one is just a little hard to take apart for cleaning. I'm debating trying to make a stand tomorrow if time allows and possibly using the bag of apples in my car to test it out. The only real problem is I think the apples in the car are frozen solid at the moment and even if I get them thawed they will just be mush and not really prove much about the efficiency of the whole contraption. It would be fun to give it a go though I've been doing the math on the July apples and figure if I got another year like this past one, it is entirely possible that I could get as much as 1700 LBS of apples in July alone. This could certainly make the bigger faster chopper a very important tool and top my 100 gallon goal before apple season even really gets started. The combination of the two apples in that one yard made a really nice cider too, whomever planted those trees on that farm in the 50s really knew what they were doing

[cranky]

OK as promised here are some pictures of yesterdays activities.

It pretty much began when I went to Lowes and started looking for something to cover and protect the all-thread rod. While looking at plastic pipe I noticed one was significantly larger than the other even though they were both 1/2 inch

In fact one actually fit tightly inside the other

So I figured I could make a bushing out of the larger one and be all set. So for a couple dollars I bought some 4ft lengths of 1/2" PVC and CPVC. I cut a little off the PVC and slipped it over the CPVC, slipped that over the shaft and used a pen to mark the metal the bushing was going to go through.

So that left me with this

I then carefully routed out the hole with a die grinder so it was just big enough to fit the PVC

[cranky]

I thought about different ways of securing the bushing to the the metal spreaders. My original plan was to just heat them up with a heat gun and use a punch as a mandrel to expand them but I thought that might allow them to eventually start slipping so I came up with the idea of some tabs held in by screws.

So I cut some pieces of PVC to make tabs

I heated them up with a heat gun until they were soft and squished them down on the table and held them until they cooled so the tabs were horizontal.

I then fitted them to the holes, I had to adjust the hole to a slight oval shape to get them to fit, but that wasn't a problem.

I then drilled and countersunk some holes, cleaned everything up on a sander and secured the bushings with stainless steel screws and nuts.

Then I used the heat gun to heat them back up and used a big tapered punch to expand them to fill the hole completely and open it up a bit for the CPVC

The hole was actually just slightly tight, so I used the die grinder to very carefully open up the hole in the bushing, just enough that the CPVC slides in nicely.

[cranky]

I then set about making ears for the drum out of scrap aluminum. I off set them on either side of the drum so they can be secured to the stand with some screws and when I need to take it apart I can just take the screws out, rotate it 45 degrees and disconnect the shaft from the motor and the whole thing should come out.

Then I put everything back together

So now it is pretty much ready to go, I just need to make the stand and that might just wait til spring.

[bship]

I like the bushing/sleeve idea. Cheap and effective. That thing looks like it could take down a watermelon

[Bushman]

Cranky you have given me some new ideas

[Oldvine Zin]

Crank it out cranky - looks good

OVZ

[cranky]

Damn I never even saw that you guys posted that in January, sorry I missed that and thank you

I have been cleaning my yard in preparation for a retaining wall going in and am getting ready for a dump run. one of the things I'm throwing away is an old table saw that burnt up, because it was a well used garage sale saw and I have ripped thousands of feet of boards on it. Just before I loaded the saw in the truck I had an idea. The saw has a switch on it and a breaker, so I figured I could take those and use them for the chopper. So I got my jig saw out and roughly hacked out the section that holds the switch and breaker.

Then I took it to work and cleaned it up

It even has a box so I can mount it to the board the motor will be attached to.

[steelmb]

.... I made up some PVC bushings for the shaft through the cross pices to help prevent wear and sheathed the rod in CPVC to protect it. The CPVC slides through the PVC bushings and keeps everything lined up.....

I am not wanting to rain on your parade here but I don't believe this bushing setup will last. The apple juice may lubricate it enough and keep it cool enough, but I have my doubts. You don't have much to lose by trying it as is, but if it fails I would go to something else. The theory on bushings is that you need one hard material and one soft. Here you have two soft materials. They will probably chew each other up. I would replace the sheathing on the shaft with a piece of SS pipe if you can get it or even a piece of copper. Copper is considered soft when it comes to metals but is hard compared to the plastic so that combination could work well.

[cranky]

.... I made up some PVC bushings for the shaft through the cross pices to help prevent wear and sheathed the rod in CPVC to protect it. The CPVC slides through the PVC bushings and keeps everything lined up.....

I am not wanting to rain on your parade here but I don't believe this bushing setup will last. The apple juice may lubricate it enough and keep it cool enough, but I have my doubts. You don't have much to lose by trying it as is, but if it fails I would go to something else. The theory on bushings is that you need one hard material and one soft. Here you have two soft materials. They will probably chew each other up. I would replace the sheathing on the shaft with a piece of SS pipe if you can get it or even a piece of copper. Copper is considered soft when it comes to metals but is hard compared to the plastic so that combination could work well.

These are actually things I have considered, I don't have any access to a short piece of SS but do have copper and considered it but the fact that copper gets shiny when exposed to apple juice gave me concerns about possible copper contamination in the cider that will be kept as cider. Since the bushings will have no side load I figure it should be OK but if the plastic on plastic bushings don't work out I will just make up some oak or maple bearing blocks like I did on the original which worked quite well.

[cranky]

I have been thinking a lot about finishing up the new chopper build if it ever stops raining We had one rain free day this week and I spent that retorquing the heads on my truck. Now that the retaining wall is finished and the yard is expanded I need to start building a fence and shed and of course finishing the front porch and plan on cutting all the parts for the frame of the chopper while doing that and get it all assembled and ready for this coming apple season

[cranky]

It was a nice warm sunny day here in Seattle so when I got home from work I took a little time to work on the newest version of the chopper. I managed to mark out and cut the 4x4s that will serve as the stand.
So here is what I got done

It really wasn't much work to cut and notch the parts, I just needed to find a half hour or so and some dry weather so I could get it done. The next step is to start drilling holes and bolting everything together

[cranky]

With apple season fast approaching I've had to somehow find a little more time to work on the chopper. I got the stand all assembled. That was a bit of a pain The first design used an 8 gallon bucket that I used last year to catch pulp in but that only holds about 75 pounds of pulp. So I thought it would be better to make it wide enough to fit the big red tub that holds something like 200-250 pounds of pulp. That way I can do a big run nonstop and time it to see how long it takes. With a goal of 1,000#s an hour, that requires abut 17#s per minute. Now considering the smaller apples run about 6.5 to a pound that means I would need to do 6500 apples per hour or nearly 2 apples per second the problem I see at the moment is not in the equipment but in the person feeding but I think that is totally doable.

So anyway, after cutting a new spreader piece to make the stand accommodate the larger tub I needed to add some filler pieces for the barrel to attach to. I also cut a bunch of pieces of all thread to hold everything together. I had this all thread leftover from various other projects so size varied from 5/16", 3/8" and 1/2". The 5/16" will be holding the barrel to the posts, the 3/8" will hold the filler blocks to the posts and the 1/2" will hold the motor plate on. I've been busy drilling holes and fitting paces together. Now I'm to the point I just need to buy some nuts and washers and start bolting everything up.

There are still some small adjustments that need to be made but here is what I have right now.

[yakattack]

Damn cranky. Who would have thought that you would take my simple choper and make it into an apple processing machine. When you run with an idea you really go the extra mile. Now you just need a hopper to feed it and it will become almost autonomous.

[cranky]

Damn cranky. Who would have thought that you would take my simple choper and make it into an apple processing machine. When you run with an idea you really go the extra mile.

Yeah, when a goofy idea hits me I tend to really go with it. It's very common for me to hear people say "I should have known that was your doing" after they see something I'm working on when I'm off doing what I'm paid to do and I come back. It's actually kind of funny since it happens so often.

This might be a bit off topic but that reminds me of something that happened the other day at work. There was no parking spaces available when I got to work one morning so I parked in the "employee of the month" parking, which isn't a big deal because we haven't had an employee of the month for something like 2 years. Whenever I park there I always go move my truck after shift change when parking frees up. So after shift change I was reparking my truck next to a Porsche or Corvette or something like that, because I always try to park next to the most expensive car in the parking lot. As I got out of it our regional manager was walking towards the front door and said "I should have known that truck was yours, who else would it be?"

I guess that just sort of shows my unique non linear way of thinking

This setup currently has 25 sets of blades which I painstakingly rearranged the other day to what I think will be the best setup.

The top 6 blades are single blades to allow for the biggest bite, the next 12 are actually done in pairs, separated by a lock washer, arranged 90 degrees to each other to make a smaller bite since hopefully by then the pieces will be smaller. The next 6 are done in groups of 3 equally spaced, separated again by only lockwashers. Then at the bottom is a single serrated blade to hopefully catch any larger chunks that may have made it past all the rest of those blades. The first 12 blades are also serrated. I believe I have room for a few more sets of blades but want to see how much the apples bounce around before I add any more.

Now you just need a hopper to feed it and it will become almost autonomous.

The hopper is the next thing on the list Actually a combination hopper/chute is. The wife needs to feel like she is contributing somehow, so her job is to sit on a stool and feed the machine. I want the hopper to hold a minimum of 100 pounds of apples so I don't have to keep refilling it every couple minutes like the other one. If I reach my goal of 1,000# per hour it will still need refilled every 6 minutes or so, so I will probably be dumping buckets of apples into it the whole time my wife is feeding it just to keep up.

I'm actually working on a new design for the MK VI (or is it up to 7 now? ) I'm thinking full on Rube Goldberg with a conveyor that feeds the apples from a hopper to a spiral chute that they roll down into the chopper. Beneath the chopper will be another conveyor that feeds the pulp to an automated press. After pressing maybe a catapult that flings the pomace to the compost bin. I think I may need a tree shaker and dump bed for my truck though so I can park it under an apple tree and shake the apples into the bed, then back it up to the hopper and dump it in, hit the switch and enjoy the show

[The Baker]

cranky said, "maybe a catapult that flings the pomace to the compost bin.".

Haven't thought of apple grappa from the pomace???

Geoff

[cranky]

Haven't thought of apple grappa from the pomace???

Sure it has been considered and I started to do some a couple years ago. When you add water to the pomace it expands to it's original size so it takes up a tremendous amount of space which is at a premium for me. Then you have to press it all over again or have a wide opening to clean it out of the still and it just isn't worth it to me. By the time I'm done pressing all those apples I just don't want to do it again

[cranky]

No pictures today but I managed to get the motor re-positioned and adjusted so it lines up properly with the drive shaft. Lifting that heavy ass motor by myself isn't much fun but I managed. Now the next thing to install is the coupling, which will be a piece of 1/2 inch hydraulic hose just like I used on the last one. Then I need to do the wiring, which should be pretty simple. Then it's time to make the the chute and I will be all set to go.

Of course my wife just threw another monkey wrench into the works She went and ordered all the stuff to build a new fence around the yard so we won't have to look at Speedoman this summer. Of course she will be expecting me to dedicate my free time to that little project until it's done so progress on the chopper might slow down to what I can accomplish at work, but I should easily be able to load everything in the back of the truck and finish it up at there once I get the dash repainted, which should be done in the next few days

[yakattack]

Of course my wife just threw another monkey wrench into the works She went and ordered all the stuff to build a new fence around the yard so we won't have to look at Speedoman this summer. Of course she will be expecting me to dedicate my free time to that little project until it's done so progress on the chopper might slow down to what I can accomplish at work, but I should easily be able to load everything in the back of the truck and finish it up at there once I get the dash repainted, which should be done in the next few days

How's the deck coming cranky ?

[cranky]

How's the deck coming cranky ?

I have to report it is still stalled at about 90% compete. The warm dry weather has finally hit but motivation has been a bit lacking I did do a little work on the truck and can report it now has a rare factory option that few other Gladiators have... A WORKING GAS GAUGE!!! However since I had the retaining wall built and the yard is a big desert. I haven't wanted to dig out the saw and stuff and get sawdust everywhere. I broke out my big tarp to set the saws up on and plan on working on the fence, the porch, a shed and kitchen and bath trimwork all at the same time. Hopefully I can get that done within the next month because last year apple season started on July 3rd. I didn't even do a garden this year because my wife said it was a garden or apples and the house better get finished!!!

[cranky]

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon working on the fence but towards the end of the evening I took a few minutes to continue work on the chopper.

I figured I could get the coupling fitted and maybe start bolting the drum down, since I went to lowe's for fence parts and bought the nuts to do that with.

So I started to connect the coupling to the motor and discovered I had a problem. It turned out the shaft on the motor was 5/8ths

but the all-thread I used for the shaft is 1/2" so my coupling is also 1/2".

I don't have any budget to upgrade anything and don't plan on using this motor for anything other than the chopper so my solution was to grab a big ol' file plug in the motor and hold the file to the shaft until it was 1/2".

It only took a few minutes and I think it turned out pretty good. Then I slipped the coupling over the 2 shafts, grabbed a couple hose clamps, tightened it down and plugged it in to see how it worked.

In my excitement to see the new chopper operate I completely forgot that I still hadn't bolted the drum to the stand. All that was holding it were 4 screws on the very corners of the brackets so it was pretty bouncy. In fact it was very very bouncy. As soon as I plugged it in it was obvious something was terribly wrong. The drum started shaking and I could hear that terrible noise of blades contacting metal. When I shut it down I found that the drum had distorted a little bit and I had made some of the blades fit the drum very tightly so with the distortion the trailing edges of the blades were able to contact the barrel.

Fortunately the drum contained the blades and only got a few marks on it.

[yakattack]

So what you mean to say is it successfully passed a stress test for safety. :