Hey Sully,
When these guards are getting made are you going to be there when the first one is made to check that it all works once it's made out of SS, or at least give them your mill to double check it?
Would hate for these guys to knock out all these guards and they don't work properly.
Farside.
My concern is not only the consistency of the guards but the consistency of the mills. My mill and I know of at least one other has an aperture between the rollers that visibly changes as it is rotating. What's to say we all haven't got different sized mills by a mm here or there?
Ideas? Comments?
There seems to be varying inconsistancies with every mill by the sounds of it. I hear your concerns and believe me I am too, and quite frankly I'm sticking my neck on the line here. I won't give 100% guarantee it will work on every mill, but Im sure it will work on greater than 99.9999% of them.
What I didnt mention (as I forgot to) is that the mounting holes are cut 10mm diameter (the mill ones are 8mm) so there is some additional adjustment there as well which will help for fine tuning. If anything, the worst that will need to happen is you may need to take a flap wheel grinding disc to it to shave a bit off here or there. But hopefully not.
My only concern is that the guard is slightly off centre when you look from the top so that it covers the gears completely.
Yes it is offset, 30mm from the outer edge to cover the gears and 20mm on the non-geared side leaving a 130mm opening. If you look at the knurling on the mill it doesnt go right to the edge so its basically there to keep the grain within the knurling.
Attached is a PDF template if you want to cut one yourself out of cardboard and double check. It also has the feeder if it intrests you, but not really necessary if you have the Millmaster Hopper. Use a 1mm board to give you a more true size. Dont forget to change "PAGE SCALING" to "NONE" when you go to print it.This is the best I can suggest at this stage since they want to charge eighty-something dollars for a single unit.
Hope that helps. Please air any concerns, I would rather know now than after having them cut. Its a design I have been working on for a while now and been fine tuning it as I go. I am pretty sure all bases are covered but a fresh set of eyes may pick something up.
I will close this Bulk Buy Wednesday next week to give everyone time to check their mill and cancel or order. Also the quote expires then (only a 7 day quote) so hence there is a bit of urgency.
Well we exceeded 30 units so its looking good. I will see if I can get them to sharpen their pencils a bit more too.
Cheers
Sully
PS: The PDF is before I made the mounting holes 10mm so take into concideration when trying it out.
View attachment Gear_Guard.pdf
