Drill Press Driven Mill

[kymba]

This is what i knocked up today...if you squint it looks pretty. It is an old GMC 1/3hp drill press set at 500rpm and reduced further (but not enough). The only thing i had to do really was to chop the column to the desired height. I braced up the back of the cabinet with 12mm ply then just bolted the base onto the ply

the bits of wood bolted onto the drill body were going to be for mounting before it struck me to just chop the column. these drills can be had for $50 on gumtree, or i've seen ryobi ones in buggins for about $90. The large pulley on the roller spindle is two discs of 12mm ply that had a 45 degree chamfer routed into one edge then glued together to form the vee

still a bit more faffing around to do to pretty it up, but i was fkn stoked it worked!

 

[pk.sax]

Sir, you are an artist

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

I looked at my drill stand for ages and wondered why some one hadn't done it.
Good work.
Nev

 

[razz]

Ghetto magic!
:beerbang:

 

[Malted]

Tell us about the mill rollers. Is that sand paper? How did you make the ply toothed cogs?

 

[kymba]

Tell us about the mill rollers. Is that sand paper? How did you make the ply toothed cogs?

Sure, the mill rollers are made from some hardwood plank cut out with a big hole saw then threaded onto some M12 rod

The gears were drawn up in cad then printed to scale and glued onto the ply. Cut them out carefully with a jigsaw

 

[Bizier]

You sir, are awesome.

 

[troopa]

That roller design is awsome
is there any chance you might want to post the gear cad/pdf drawing up so others can have a shot at making similar?
Im thinking theres a few uses here.. add some screws and increase the gap area and you have a damn cool apple scratter as well maybe

 

[MHB]

Drill presses make great mill drives, I used one here for a couple of years from when I opened in 2006 (Link).
I know hardwood rollers will work but they are going to ware out a lot faster than would metal ones, you will find that over time they get worn in the centre and will need to be redressed.
The big advantage you have is the diameter of the rolls; big rolls are much better at feeding the grain and give a much more gentle crushing action, if anyone is interested its called Nip Angle Theory. I remember the first time I saw the mill from a really big brewery 600mm round and 2 meters long, spiral fluted an absolute work of art. Not many mills are made that long any more as they found that you could measure the flex in the centres when they were going flat-out, gives you some idea of the forces involved.
Mark

 

[Silver]

Nice one. Where there's a will there's always a way.

 

[white.grant]

That's a pretty cool mill. Nice work!

 

[kymba]

thanks for the kind words

I can share the gear drawing for sure, however it will only work if your rollers are the same diameter as mine. This site might be a bit better as it lets you play around with different gear designs http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html

Mark that's awesome...makes mine look like the long lost half-cousin with a monobrow from up the hills! How long did your drill last? And yeah, I have noticed a small amount of pitting and a slight wearing of the rollers, but I think it will be a long time before it starts impacting on efficiency (not that that is a priority of mine)

 

[kymba]

made a bigger sheave to slow this bad boy down...didn't run any grain through as it was after 10pm last night and i live in a block of units

wonder how it will take the mrs to find out where the chopping boards have gone?