It has been said that a poly tub cement mixer can be one of the most useful tools for a small refinery.
My problem is simply the scale.
As of right now, I have no reliable way to exhaust the fumes from a polytub cement mixer. They aren't small when you are just working out of a small garage, and already seeing all of your tools rust due to poor ventilation.
This is my answer to that. A more modular system with 2 gallon buckets. It's small enough to fit right in my hood, and light enough that I can throw it up on the top shelf
It amounts to not much more than a welded frame hoisting a 1/4 Hp 90v DC motor with speed controller, 10:1 right angle drive, then a faceplate with an aluminum disc on it. If I didn't have the parts on hand, I would have used a 1/4 Hp 208v AC 3 phase 56C motor, a similar gearbox, and a 110 V in AC VFD. The faceplate should be available from any motion control house, but even a large cast iron pulley with a piece of plywood would work. This was literally done with parts I had laying around, the only machining I had to do was to make a key between the motor and gearbox, and drill the holes to mount the disc to the faceplate.
I just bolted an empty 2 gallon bucket to the disc, but the disc is large enough to bolt a 5 gallon bucket. This bucket amounts to nothing more than a clamping method for the bucket in use.
So the beauty of this is that I can just pull the bucket out and drag it off to whereever to prep, clean the bucket, whatever.
It's first project will be converting a 2 L beaker of silver chloride to elemental with sulfuric and iron, then I've got lots and lots of other stuff. Silver contacts, 50% silver braze, grinding ash, even stone removal in karat scrap (with a glass beaker or teflon bucket).
My problem is simply the scale.
As of right now, I have no reliable way to exhaust the fumes from a polytub cement mixer. They aren't small when you are just working out of a small garage, and already seeing all of your tools rust due to poor ventilation.
This is my answer to that. A more modular system with 2 gallon buckets. It's small enough to fit right in my hood, and light enough that I can throw it up on the top shelf
It amounts to not much more than a welded frame hoisting a 1/4 Hp 90v DC motor with speed controller, 10:1 right angle drive, then a faceplate with an aluminum disc on it. If I didn't have the parts on hand, I would have used a 1/4 Hp 208v AC 3 phase 56C motor, a similar gearbox, and a 110 V in AC VFD. The faceplate should be available from any motion control house, but even a large cast iron pulley with a piece of plywood would work. This was literally done with parts I had laying around, the only machining I had to do was to make a key between the motor and gearbox, and drill the holes to mount the disc to the faceplate.
I just bolted an empty 2 gallon bucket to the disc, but the disc is large enough to bolt a 5 gallon bucket. This bucket amounts to nothing more than a clamping method for the bucket in use.
So the beauty of this is that I can just pull the bucket out and drag it off to whereever to prep, clean the bucket, whatever.
It's first project will be converting a 2 L beaker of silver chloride to elemental with sulfuric and iron, then I've got lots and lots of other stuff. Silver contacts, 50% silver braze, grinding ash, even stone removal in karat scrap (with a glass beaker or teflon bucket).