Oldmechthings
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2008
- Messages
- 153
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Almost every large antique machinery show that I attended there was at least one person with some kind of an aluminum can crushing machine that they had built in order to give their faithfully restored old antique engine something useful (?) to do. Is it any wonder that I should want one too. Except I had some different thoughts on powering it. I envisioned a lot of potential power going to waste in spectators who were walking around looking at the exhibits. So I proceeded to build a crusher designed around a crank wheel that I had acquired at an estate sale of a deceased friend. He had been a florist and the crank wheel had been used to open and close the ventilators on his greenhouse. Shown below is a couple grandsons giving the crusher it's initial testing and workout after being completed.
My theory was correct. Spectators would stand in line to get a turn at turning the wheel and crushing a can or two. And when I would run out of empty cans they would bring their own. Conditions have not changed. We still have the crusher here at the house and people come just to crush cans. We do not even drink canned pop, but friends and neighbors do, and keep us well supplied with empty cans.
Then our son in law, one of those computer programmer guru guys, thought that they ought to have a crusher at the office where he worked. Apparently programming takes a "Lot" of brain food which pop provides. Only he wanted one with an electric motor on it, so I obliged. Being conservative and not wanting to over power it, I fitted it with an old sewing machine motor, as seen below.
His machine has some ups and downs. The down side is, that it takes about 3/4ths of a minute to cycle through crushing one can. While the motor and belt is whoring, the gears, grinding away, the crank and ratchets clicking and the can crinkling and moaning under all that pressure, all in syncopation.
The up side is, that it is very entertaining to those who are mechanically defunct while it is doing it.
Birk
My theory was correct. Spectators would stand in line to get a turn at turning the wheel and crushing a can or two. And when I would run out of empty cans they would bring their own. Conditions have not changed. We still have the crusher here at the house and people come just to crush cans. We do not even drink canned pop, but friends and neighbors do, and keep us well supplied with empty cans.
Then our son in law, one of those computer programmer guru guys, thought that they ought to have a crusher at the office where he worked. Apparently programming takes a "Lot" of brain food which pop provides. Only he wanted one with an electric motor on it, so I obliged. Being conservative and not wanting to over power it, I fitted it with an old sewing machine motor, as seen below.
His machine has some ups and downs. The down side is, that it takes about 3/4ths of a minute to cycle through crushing one can. While the motor and belt is whoring, the gears, grinding away, the crank and ratchets clicking and the can crinkling and moaning under all that pressure, all in syncopation.
The up side is, that it is very entertaining to those who are mechanically defunct while it is doing it.
Birk
