Home Distiller

Having abandoned the giant hand blender I ripped off of Yakattack and Cranky due to safety reasons, I threw together a drum scratter.

5.5" white ash drum, pine frame, maple for the chute, stainless strapping for teeth in the Jolicour tradition.

All that's left is the feed hopper and mounting the motor. I'm deciding between building a sorting table or just a chute on top to feed it by the bucketful. Either way the 3/4x12" wide pine I planed down is going to look sexy.
Tomorrow we crush.

Looks great keep us posted on the progress.

Curious what safety concerns you had with the drill mixer system. Not questioning the fact that there may be concerns. Just if you have something specific that cranky or myself may have overlooked, then it would be nice to be able to correct them or design around them before they become an issue.

Yak.

PS. Keep the pics coming. Looks like.its going to be a good build.

Well, I can point out one safety issue with the mud mixer. I was using a five gallon bucket inside another five gallon bucket. I was nesting two buckets together because I had already busted a hole in an unnested bucket and leaked pomace onto the floor. Anyway, the first time I used the nested buckets, the top bucket spun around and the wire bucket handle crashed into my shin. I would show everyone a picture of it, but it's kinda nasty lookin'.

I've been putting a lot of thought into how to stabilize the bucket while using the mud mixer. It seems like an easy method with the exception of the bucket spinning out of control. Thinking even more seriously about building something similar to what Wooda2008 has built. By the way, nice job on the build. Do you think you could post a few more details of your build? I'm looking for ideas.

Nice build wooda! What did you use for bearings where the scratter shaft comes through the chute sides? Initially on mine I used several wraps of a very thick teflon tape. It held up for about 4000 lbs of apples but blew out this year and the shaft started to work a bigger hole in the side boards and got sloppy. I hammered some 1/4" copper tubing flat, wrapped it around the shaft and hammered it into the wood to function as a bushing. Lubed up with keg lube its working great now again. I did the build with scraps laying around, so didnt have any proper bearings at hand when I built this thing. One day I'll design a better scratter and rebuild the box with proper bearings. Till then, its chewing up apples.

Yak, the mixer kept eating through the side of my bucket. I was standing on the bucket to keep it steady. The mixer bucked of the wall and peeled a nice ribbon from my boot tread through the lid

Issue would be fixed with a sturdier bucket and a bushing through the lid instead of just a hole.

Jimbo, they're 5/8 pillow block bearings from tractor supply to fit the all thread I sunk in for the shaft.

All the wood in this build was sourced from urban tree removals by an aborist friend. The stainless hose clamps were sitting in the shop. The only thing that cost money was the bearings

Nice. Post a pic of your scratter drum.

S-Cackalacky wrote:Well, I can point out one safety issue with the mud mixer. I was using a five gallon bucket inside another five gallon bucket. I was nesting two buckets together because I had already busted a hole in an unnested bucket and leaked pomace onto the floor. Anyway, the first time I used the nested buckets, the top bucket spun around and the wire bucket handle crashed into my shin. I would show everyone a picture of it, but it's kinda nasty lookin'.

I've been putting a lot of thought into how to stabilize the bucket while using the mud mixer. It seems like an easy method with the exception of the bucket spinning out of control. Thinking even more seriously about building something similar to what Wooda2008 has built. By the way, nice job on the build. Do you think you could post a few more details of your build? I'm looking for ideas.

Maybe some sort of stand, with a post on either side of the bucket and a pin/bolt going through the holes for the handle?

Rak, I was thinking of something along those lines. For the grinding I did a few days ago, I had the buckets sitting in a milk crate with towels stuffed around it and boards stuffed in among the towels. It was a half-assed spur of the moment solution and a struggle to work with. I like the idea of a wooden frame and some way to clamp or lash the buckets to a side post to keep them from spinning. Then, once you get the bucket locked in, will the whole frame start spinning - maybe a couple of sand bags would help with that. The stability of the bucket(s) seems to be the main hassle with the mud mixer method. I think it has the potential to be a quick and easy way to grind fruit if the equipment can be tamed.

Edit: Sorry Wooda2008, I apologize for taking your thread off topic.

Today we pressed about 7 gallons of cider from 15 gallons of apples. The blend was delicious, plenty of sweet and sharp, but a little short on bitter.

The scratter worked flawlessly. Running it at 900rpm gave a great chop, and the thing never once bogged down. There was an occasional blockage in the chute, but a quick stir with a 2x4 opened it up every time.

My press sucks. I made the racks with the slats too far apart. The plastic tub takes up too much space.

But enough bitchin, here's some pics:

Stainless strap bent 90* lengthwise, drilled and screwed to drum. The shit press Sorry for the blurry pics.

Wooda, where did you source the ash roller and how did you attach a shaft to it?

S-Cackalacky wrote:Wooda, where did you source the ash roller and how did you attach a shaft to it?

An Arborist friend gave me an ash log he cut in the spring. I turned it down on the wood lathe.

To drill for the shafts, I clamped the piece against the fence on my table saw and eyeballed it with the hand drill using the marks from the lathe centers as a starting point, going 4 inches deep from each side since that's the longest 1/2 drill bit I own. Drove in 5/8 threaded rod on each end with an impact wrench until it bottomed out, checked that it spun true with no wobble and mounted it to the frame.

Special thanks to Jimbo, whose drum scratter set me off on this tangent, and to the ridgid wood lathe in my father's garage, which made a 5.5 inch by 10 inch long drum possible

It's amazing how well a spinning drum with teeth chews up apples isinit it. I don't even have much horsepower on it. I have an ancient motor, not home right now to look, at windys drinking bourbon around the fire haha, but I think it's a 1940" s 1/3 hp.

wooda2008 wrote:

S-Cackalacky wrote:Wooda, where did you source the ash roller and how did you attach a shaft to it?

An Arborist friend gave me an ash log he cut in the spring. I turned it down on the wood lathe.

To drill for the shafts, I clamped the piece against the fence on my table saw and eyeballed it with the hand drill using the marks from the lathe centers as a starting point, going 4 inches deep from each side since that's the longest 1/2 drill bit I own. Drove in 5/8 threaded rod on each end with an impact wrench until it bottomed out, checked that it spun true with no wobble and mounted it to the frame.

Thanks for the response Wooda. A lot to think about, but it seems that there are some choices. I don't have any way to turn a piece of raw wood, so if I go with a wooden roller, it would have to be something already true. I was thinking of looking into salvaged building materials for something like a porch roof post or a stairway newel post. There's also the PVC pipe alternative which may turn out to be the easiest. But, a decent press has priority. I can continue to use the mud mixer for grinding, but definitely don't want to continue using the ass press for pressing apples.

For those new apple fiends that are short up on cash or have limited shop resources, I would highly recommend making something like Cranky's apple chopper as seen here in the "fruity goodness" thread:

cranky wrote:I think you guys might enjoy this

OMG!!!!! I cant tell if that is a 327 or a 350 running it. I could hear what sounded like the turbo spooling up. Id love to see more. That could change the way apples are eaten.

I just discovered this thread. Great job Wooday. I believe using what you have is a very good thing and you have done an excellent job.

Halfbaked wrote:OMG!!!!! I cant tell if that is a 327 or a 350 running it. I could hear what sounded like the turbo spooling up. Id love to see more. That could change the way apples are eaten.

I hope I'm correct in assuming that was about the chopper. I really don't want to hijack wooday's thread so I'm trying to keep the details to a minimum.
We happened to have a spare jet engine laying around the shop so we used that because it was handy Just kidding
In the video we were using my Hitachi drill (model FDV16VB2) which I bought to drill holes in concrete for my porch. It can be switched from hammer drill to regular drill and has a knob to adjust the speed. The drill is capable of 2600 RPM but it was set somewhere under 1500. The Hitachi is a good drill for short time use but overheated after about a minute and a half so the final 30 seconds of chopping was done with an 18V Milwaukee cordless drill that spun at somewhere around 1500 RPM and did the job just fine. Anything less than 1000 RPM didn't do a very good job.

A detail of the build can be found in this thread
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... &start=540