motorized mill question
 

I have had a malt mill for awhile and I'm planning to motorize it. I pulled a 1/4 horsepower motor out of an old dryer that turns at 1725 rpm. I have been reading that these malt mills work best in the 300 rpm range so I need some sort of reduction. Where is a good place to get pulleys? The closest I could find at Lowes or Home Depot would be replacement wheels for lawnmowers that have a nice groove with the "tire" removed. I thought maybe a piece from an old sewing machine but I'm not sure where to look. Any help is appreciated.

when i want to find something like that i go to the big thrift stores that have lots of stuff like habitat for humanity. and you might be able to find a big pulley there. you could find a broken sewing machine off of craigslist, consider what it would cost vs. the cost of just buying a high torque drill from harbor freight. if that's cheaper, then you could just sell your motor on craigslist. i love to see peoples grain mills

I recently motorized my Maltmill with a dryer motor as well. Traded some homebrew to my local appliance shop for the motor. I went with a 10" sheave on the mill and a 1.5" sheave on the motor to reduce the the RPMs from 1725 down to about 190.

I have been meaning to post a DIY with some of the build photos.....it works great. Now I just need to build a bigger hopper, a cover for the motor and a safety guard.

Here is the list of parts I bought from Grainger via http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/drillspot-146635/

And here is a short video of it in action:

not to be hijacking but i use the corona mil with a drill attached to a bolt from he auger. last week i milled 12 lbs through it in a couple minutes. u get the setting on the mill right and let a 18v dewalt rip. it milled it all in maybe 5 minutes. i attached a larger plastic container made from a protein shake container. cut the top off and you got a good 3-4 lbs hopper.

works marvels. i do mostly biab so a finer crush grain works good with a high speed drill

TSC has a small selection of pulleys.

Gunshow -
great question, and welcome to the board.
You will find that lots of sources get mentioned on this board and you can find just about anything.

Local stuff - Grainger, Tractor Supply, and the big boxes (HD, Lowes)
Online - McMasterCarr is a big favorite for all kinds of fun stuff

if you get into electronics, and want to build a thermistor for your temp control, they're 77 cents at Digi-Key, and shipping is like a dollar or two.

etc.

Just tell us what you're building, ask for sources and you'll get several of options over a couple of days.

This is what I consulted when building my mill station.

http://hbd.org/carboy/motorizing_a_malt_mill.htm

I do something similar and it works fine for me as well.

Thanks for the info, this will def get me going in the right direction. The hbd link pretty much spells it out. I just finished my keggle (last piece in the 10 gal batch upgrade) and milling the bigger grain bills by hand didn't sound like a whole lot of fun.