Homemade cheese and cider press

Step 14: Making a crank to run the rollers

To run the rollers that mash the apples up, I created a crank out of bike sprockets (see Step 10).

I fashioned a handle for this crank using a piece of scrap wood that was laying around. On one end for the handle part I put a big 5/8" x 8" bolt through it (with some treadlocker to keep the nut on). I drilled a hole in the other end of the crank-board and put it onto one of the shafts that was sticking out farther than the other . I intentionally left one shaft longer than the other to keep one sprocket from hitting the other one when it was rotated. I attached the crank-board to the shaft with two nuts that I used to pinch the board tight.

I connected all of the bike sprockets with a bike chain that was sized to fit. The chain runs through the sprockets and around a tensioner (which is a bike sprocket on a spring) that was taken off the back of the 10-speed donor bike that contributed all the parts. The tensioner was just bolted to the side of the mash-box. With all these parts in place, my crank mechanism was ready for apple season.

Comments

[theelectrifier]

can you detail how you made the rollers each turn a different way?

[bwitmer]

Hi- it's hard to explain, but if you look closely at the picture in step 14 you can see how I routed the chain around the gear on the main crank, and then ran it under the next gear, with the tensioner keeping it taut. So, when the main crank is turned the chain makes the next gear run in the opposite direction. I hope that helps...