Apple Shredder Build Question

no possibility of impregnate it?

No the hole's not big enough.
But seriously... Oak is 'food safe' so really I'm just hoping to minimise the risk of cracking, and I wouldn't want to imprgnate it with any sort of chemical preservative.
I've got some Oak flooring boards for the rest of the machine (the guy next door is a flooring contractor and gave me some offcuts).
I'll use plain Oak bearings lubricated with olive oil, all nice natural stuff. I'll prob run through some apples for testing and throw away the fist incase it's full of tanin.
Gotta build a press too.
Bumper crop of apples this year and there are tons of 'em just going to waste. I don't mind if the project doesn't really get finished until next year, but it would be fun to make some juice as we drink loads of it and Mr Sainsbury is already wealthy enough without my help.
Del

Tannin is good stuff, in moderation. Tea, red wine, aged bourbon has plenty of it.

A note on bearings. I borrowed it from steel mills. There - believe it or not - hot stock is rolled on bearings made from hardwoods and lubricated by water. Takes shock loads fine. Now, I do not expect much in shock loads in a cider mill. But, making the pillow block of the bearing from hardwood, lining it with copper sheet metal provides an excellent, easy to make bearing for the wooden axle of the apple chipper. Lubricate with water, it is compatible with cider.

A synchronous cogbelt with fitting sprockets (from a castoff) is an excellent, no maintenance transmission.

Andy raised an interesting question. My electric woodchipper has a large enough throat at 2 1/2 inches. But, the electric motor is mounted below the blade, and its bearings are not protected from liquids. I am not confident, it would survive a cider making season.

My grandfather was trained to sharpen grist mill stones among many other things. He told me that many water mills used hornbeam wood (iron wood) for bearings. I assume there is an English equivelent. Small rollers were sometimes made out of a dogwood trees stump because the grain tends to be intertwined and it is resistant to cracking.

We do have Hornbeam, it's Vheavy.. dunno if it's quite the same as your stuff, I'm going to try some for my bow making (Google 'delsbows' to see my stuff)
Del

how about Lignum Vitae? (waterproof)

http://www.tis-gdv.de/tis_e/misc/holzart.htm

http://www.bellforestproducts.com/exotic-wood/

Chris

Doesn't grow over the road from me.
Anyhow, I've pressed my apples, just waitin' for nature to work it's yeasty magic.
Del

Ha you may have a point, I found a blog where a guy soaked his in olive oil to stop it soaking up apple juice.
Maybe if I let it dry for a month and then soak it in olive oil...
Or stick it in a can of groundnut oil at over 100C, I read that it's a good way to impregnate oiled hardwood bearings.
That would let me get on with the build... I'm an impatient old git.
Del

A Jeff Gallagher "Sledge-o-Matic" might also work here.

I remember wood cross-sectional specimens that needed one radial cut, and then would shrink to a "Pac-Man" with a gap of a few to maybe 30° or so. If you build it and use it promptly, maybe the maintained moisture can prevent a problem. If it dries, one or more checks are likely. I don't know how much of a problem they would be, but would guess that a few small ones decently distributed would be better than a single large one.

Maybe just go for it, and see what happens?

When you're done with making the cider, you could repurpose your copper coil to make applejack! (Shhh, don't tell the infernal revenooers.)

Cheers, yeah, this bit of Oak is about quarter of the log so it doesn't carry the central pith and hopefully won't do the pacman thing.
Being a nice short bit of wood it was easy to quarter with axe and club hammer.
Del

Perhaps you could kiln-dry it yourself? I was thinking a small enclosure with a 60 watt light bulb would provide a constant source of dry heat; after a week of slow drying it would be ready for the olive oil.

_{@Tornado -- Leo Gallagher, not Jeff.}

If the oak is green, it may split anyway.

I would say, use it. the acidity of the apple juice will act as a preservative, as well as as a curing agent for the wood.

Rather than letting it dry completely between uses, you may want to consider spritzing it with apple cider vinegar and storing in a plastic bag. This will allow you to use it, and give it a slow cure.

Cheers, I think my impatience is going to stop me seasoning it.
I mean the damn thing has already had at least 12 hours... is it done yet?
Mind, by the time I've got it built, and a press it should have had a week or two.
Del

Go ahead and use it. You just don't want it to dry too quickly. Between uses, rinse it off, give it the vinegar spritz to help prevent bacteria, and store it in a garbage bag with the end slightly opened to allow it to breath. No reason not to use it and season it at the same time.

Right, I'm off to the garage. I may be gone some considerable time...
Del

A little yeast mixed with the apple juice can work wonders.

I think you're good to go. And if it does have problems, you will have all winter to figure out the improvements you need.

BTW, I recently stumbled on the Forest Products Laboratory website. Seems to have good research and data on use of wood, from a technical view.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/publications/several_pubs.php?grouping_id=100&header_id=p is the link that leads to the "Wood Handbook" you might find interesting.

Cheers, I'll have a look later
Del

Maybe too late for advice, but I'm with the "do it now" school. Since it's all peeled it would be likely to crack while drying unless you seal it, anyway.

If I were you, I'd cut another piece, seal the ends and season it with the bark on for next year. Use this one right away, and don't worry that it may crack - if it does you'll make a longer lasting replacement.

I definitely have that feeling this year, take advantage of the abundance where you find it, and stow some for winter. Apples! Lucky cat! _{We're having a low of zero tonight.}

I think that butcher blocks get a coat of oil... (I think it is linseed.. but not sure about that)

how exactly does it work? I'm not familiar.

cheers,

Chris

For cutting boards I have made, I have used mineral oil that I bought at the pharmacy. If its safe enough to use as a laxative, I figure its safe enough for a cutting board. And it seems to have held up ok.

Del, Ried has it correct. Mineral oil "food grade or better" IS what you need to use. It seals the wood from the liquid, it won't spoil or go bad. It won't grow anything on it."the apple residue is another story"

The advantage is it can be used almost immediately.

Other oils can spoil, or can be toxic.

otherwise it sounds like you got a plan to make use of the apples.

That would be "liquid paraffin" in Britspeak

My choice would be cold pressed virgin olive oil. Any spare you can cook with, or add some herbs and give Mrs Cat a nice massage.

Great design - too easy!

Couple of observations - more on feeling than 'research'.

On the link: Building screws are generally 'passivated zinc', or cadmium (plated) - I imagine both would react with apple juice. Cadmium is highly undesirable in your diet. Iron & zinc, not so bad, but 300 series stainless c/s screws would be my choice. (you would have to drill a 'mean diameter' hole for metal thread type)

On Oak: So far as I know it was always used 'green' in ship building.

I do know that in the hardwood timber industry, logs are kept in ponds to prevent dying out, then cut 'green' (and wet)

Good point. Zinc is not much of a trouble in low amount. The golden looking cadmium plating is a bad metabolic poison. It has no place near food in any amount. Food processing equipment is made from passivated stainless steel mostly. Copper and cast iron vessels are ok for the same reason. So is oak, hint.

The sooner you use it, the lower the chances of cracking. Cracking occurs from shrinkage stress as the wood loses moisture. In fact, I would store it in a plastic bag to reduce moisture loss until your machine is finished.

I've seen shredders made kind of this way but instead of screws they used a length of chainsaw chain wrapped around the cylinder. Very effective shredder.

Well, fun. Chainsaw works like a charm, as long as one has the presence to keep limbs away from it. But using it is, simply not fair.

For wood protection. First, impatiently drying it in microwave, after wiping the endgrain with flaxseed oil. That limits checkering, and flaxseed oil is the food grade linseed oil not yet oxidised and crosslinked. After that, put the roller into a large plastic bag with plenty of flaxseed oil, and vacuum seal at the butcher or fish processor. A day later the wood is vacuum impregnated with the oil, ready for the micro to crosslink it in less than a day. Presto, an (almost) edible polymer impregnated wood tough enough for your great grandchildren's time.

Now, would not be grand to be remembered as such a wizard, while sipping wine made by your craft?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

All the data - as is - is rigorously unveryfied. After all, who would want the one and only Del deCat be impeded in "to go where no man has gone before" ?!? Not me, nosirree!!

buy a piece of over sized, seasoned, close grained wood [waltut]? use a wedge to slit the sides off so the grain is straight. after turning the od, band the od so you don't split the wood while you're turning the id. give it a few coats olf boiled linseed oil.

Sorry, I don't understand that first word in your post????
Del

I am reminded of somebody's law I heard years ago.

"If it don't fit - force it. If it breaks - then you needed a new one anyway"

Seems a variation of this may apply. Make two now and store one for next years crop. It should be just right by then.

I like the storing - fully immersed - in a sealed bag of olive oil. I have tried this with a different type of oil solution for some wood turnings and it seems to work for the thinner parts.

We make our own Apple Wine/Cider here in Germany each year (Apfelwein or Äppelwoi in local dialect!!). We bought a farm implement many years ago that is designed to make fruit into the "slurry" needed to press a liquid out.

We recently started looking around to see what else would also do it and there are machines around (I have no idea what they are called in English) that are designed to take tree cuttings and chop them up really fine as a mulch for the garden, was sitting around doing nothing!!!

So we took it apart, cleaned it thoroughly and painted it with food grade paint, all except for the cutting blades, which were stainless steel.

It works a treat and we made about 20 gallons of fruit juice just as a test, from apples.

If you want to make gallons of cider and not a few pints, you need something that works fast and can mash a lot of apples at once......otherwise you will soon get pissed off.....

Its the same with the press, we press about 50 lbs. of mashed apples at a time, last week we made 1000 liters (more than 2000 pints), not a lot when we have people here in the village that make upwards of 4000 liters each autumn!!!

The following year, in May, we have a contest to see who made the best one!!!!

So do get it as mechanised as you can........if quantity is important.

Don't use bread yeast, by a proper wine or cider yeast by the way.....

I've got it going and tested it on a few windfalls, if I just put one or two in they bounce around, but a little pressure with a stick and they go through fine.
The motor is a bit slow, but it will do for now.
Gotta make a press now.
I'll blog it up when it's done, hopefully pretty soon.
By coincidence Mrs cat is putting up new net curtains in the bedroom so I can have the old ones to wrap the pulp in for pressing.
Del

Good idea to use the old garden shredder Andy, I'll bet that chops 'em up pdq.

It's alldone stainless steel screws... I actually bought some.
I've got the frame for the press built, I've got an old mandraulic car jack I can use too.
I'd like to press on, but I'm bushed, mug of tea and a cat nap, then I've got to find/make some sort of juice tray etc.
Not to mention getting some apples.
Del

Good about the stainless - was a bit frightened to suggest 'purchase'

A crisper bin out of a fridge makes a good GP catcher of stuff - even sump oil.

I had a look at ours. I think it is maple (less open grain) and it was sliced and then relaminated to ensure no cracking. Ours is only a hand crank unit, very slow. My Father in law has a motorized one that is all stainless. A drum with short sharp angles welded on and a large hydraulic press. But he has 800 apple trees to feed it.

Another friend just obtained a under sink grinder for his apples.

Hard Cider ;) very good stuff

Mike

Cheers, some good ideas there, there's a fair bit of Maple about, I'll look out for any fallen trees over winter.
I've got a gallon of juice sitting there, hopefully doing it's thing, I shall be planning improvements for the mk II for next year. I intend to weld up a bigger press using a hydraulic bottle jack for squeezosity.
Thanks everyone for the input.
Del

"Another friend just obtained a under sink grinder for his apples."

Excellent idea- GA to him/her

Yeah but he now gets waste all over the kitchen floor
Del