How to make a grain crusher from a washing machine

grain crusher from a washing machine A grain crusher in a small subsidiary farm is an irreplaceable thing, because the “crusher” is the feed base for livestock, and preparing it manually every time is more than labor-intensive. You can buy a factory grain crusher for a lot of money, or you can make a productive device with your own hands from an old washing machine, and it will be no worse. How to do this will be discussed further.

Does it make sense to turn a “washing machine” into a grain crusher?

For those who are looking for easy ways, the easiest thing is to go to the nearest retail outlet that sells similar devices and buy a grain crusher of sufficient productivity. Of course, you will have to spend money, but the result will be guaranteed. But in our opinion, it is better to make such a device with your own hands, in it you will show your creative self, save money, and in general, there will be something to remember later.

You also need to understand that by creating a homemade product with your own hands, you give a second life to an old washing machine, get rid of old trash, turning it into a necessary thing. In addition, you are enriched with new knowledge and skills that will certainly be useful in life. Don’t think that we are forcing anyone to do homemade things, if you have never “closely communicated” with technology and have no interest in it, then no one will be able to motivate you to do it. But if you have already done something with your own hands, then no additional motivation is required.

It’s possible to make more than just a grain crusher out of a used washing machine; after reading other articles on our site, you will see this.In particular, our experts suggest doing emery from the washing machine, a concrete mixer and other useful things that will certainly come in handy around the house.

For your information! The design of the grain crusher that we offer involves minimal modification of an Oka-type “washer” or another round machine of a similar design.

Structure of a grain crusher and components for it

The basis of our grain crusher will be the Oka washing machine, which we won’t even disassemble. The only thing is that we will need to remove the activator from it, or rather its rotating plastic part, we will need the rest. Let's unscrew the activator and put the washing machine aside for now. Now let's start selecting tools, we will need:

drill;
set of drills;
pliers;
a set of open-end and socket wrenches;
Bulgarian;
chisel;
hammer.

We will also need some components that will help us subject our machine to some modifications. Bolts and nuts of different sizes, a pruning knife, a bushing and a flange, a tin and rubber gasket, and a fine grid (2-3 mm).

We've sorted out the tools and components, now let's look at the general idea and structure of the future grain crusher. The device will be very spacious, since the entire washing tank is allocated under the grain bin. Instead of an activator, there will be knives for grinding grain, and a restrictive fine-grained grid will prevent uncrushed grain from jumping out of the hopper. Only crushed grain will pass through such a grid, roll down through a special funnel and end up in a pre-positioned bucket.

Important! The grain poured into the hopper, also known as the washing tank, will gradually fall down, and the crushed “crushed material” will come out.

Assembling the unit

grain crusher from a washing machine We begin to construct a grain crusher with our own hands. Let's start with something simple - install chopper knives. It will be necessary to put the knife on a 6 cm thick pulley; for this you will have to make or select a flange that would fit onto the pulley on one side and fix the knife on the other (the type of flange will depend on the specific model of the machine and the type of chopper knife).

Having put on the knife, we will have to take care that flour and grain particles do not fall into the drive mechanism of the chopper. To do this, we will cut out a patch from tin and screw it onto the shredder bushing, and we will need to put a rubber patch on top. Make sure that the patches do not interfere with the rotation of the mechanism.

Important! To better protect the mechanism from flour dust, you can additionally seal the rubber gasket with silicone sealant.

Now let’s set up a funnel to drain the crushed grain. As you know, the washing machine drain is located at the lowest point of the washing tank. Let's take advantage of this and turn the drain hole into a grain outlet.

Using a chisel and hammer, we expand the drain hole so that its diameter becomes 12-15 cm.
Take a piece of pipe of the appropriate diameter and insert it into the widened hole
We take the pipe to the side. Now the crushed grain will come out of the hopper and pour into the container.

grain crusher from a washing machine Further the most difficult stage - you need to fix the fine-grained grate at the desired angle in the bunker, avoiding gaps between the edges of the grate and the walls of the bunker, otherwise the grain will slip through the cracks and end up in the same container with the “crushed grain”. You need to do the following:

Determine the radius of rotation of the chopper blades and make a mark at the maximum point.
Step back a little from the mark you made and draw an even line - this is the border where you need to install a fine-grained grid.
Now your task is to cut the grate so that it fits exactly at an angle from wall to wall of the bunker with virtually no gaps. The result will be a complex figure that will need to be securely fastened.
Screw the grate to the walls of the bunker as securely as possible. If possible, it can be welded altogether.
We coat the cracks with cold welding or automotive sealant and let them dry.

Now we can say that you managed to make a grain crusher with your own hands, you can move on to testing. We set the mode on the control panel that requires maximum rotation of the activator for about 3 minutes and start our grain crusher. We watch how the knife rotates and listen for any extraneous sounds. Then we check how the engine heats up and whether there is excessive friction in the drive mechanism.

Having checked all this, you can begin the first “field tests” of our grain crusher. We pour a bucket of grain into the hopper, close it on top with a standard washing machine lid and start the unit. At the same time, do not forget to substitute a container for crushed grain. That's all, we hope everything works out for you!