New homemade barrel washer

13 years ago

I have been working on this (in my mind for months now) and I finally had time to start it and build it in the last few weeks.

It is 4 foot long and the barrel is 2 foot wide. It is powered by a DC variable speed motor. I have not used it to wash carrots, yet, but Sunday is the day. It is going to be the warmest day of the week (42) and we need over 100 pounds of carrots for then farmers market coming up the first Saturday of January. I can't wait to fire it up.

It is made out of 26 inch bike rims. The wood slats are 1 by 4 ripped in half. The reason is the 1 by 4 would screw to the rims tight enough. I have about $100 in it. I also have a lot of free stuff it it too! I have included a link to a youtube video of it running.

Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Video of barrel washer running

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Comments (12)

cole_robbie
13 years ago
Neat! It looks like a gold-mining trommel that they use to wash rocks.
boulderbelt
13 years ago
nice, we could use one of those
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randy41_1
13 years ago
i would like that for mixing salad. nice job.
cdevries
13 years ago
Jay,

Do you plan to coat the wood in anything? Or do you think with enough drying out between washes that it will last ok?
jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
Original Author
13 years ago
No I don't plan on coating the wood in anything. If I did it would have to be a food safe product. I used it last week and while we had a problem with the belt slipping, it worked great. We let it sit outside and dried it off then we brought it back inside.

Since the wood is just plain pine, replacing a board or two won't be very hard to do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Barrel washer in use.
User
13 years ago
They seem to be sliding more than tumbling, so you might not be getting the best washing. Consider attaching a couple of slanted fins inside to force them to tumble.

Look inside a dryer or front-loader washer to see what I mean.
jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
Original Author
13 years ago
There is one strip of wood inside to help them tumble. I don't want them to constantly tumble, then they will be breaking. I have modeled it of other commercial washers available.

Jay
User
13 years ago
I see it now, in the picture.
bwv999
12 years ago
Hi, did you use a gear reducer on the motor? What is the maximum rpm and power rating?
jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
Original Author
12 years ago
The motor was off an old walking treadmill with a variable speed motor. I can make the motor turn very slow to turning so fast it almost knocks itself off the rollers. It doesn't have a gear reduction, but I am working at getting the motor to work better.

Currently, it helps "Assists" with turning the barrel. If I get too many carrots in the barrel, the belt slips and it doesn't turn. However, I can easily help it along, by hand and it turns just fine.

The motor set up is far from ideal, but I have zero dollars invested in the motor so I just need to find the time and buy a better motor and gear box (or I may just leave it alone as I am happy with how it works now).

Jay
hillbillymick
12 years ago
Cool beans!
Rio_Grande
12 years ago
Nice if I had something like that for greens I would be able to keep up.