Quick funneling fab for grain mill.

I recently treated myself to a Monster Mill MM2 for Giftmas, and opted out of the factory hopper (for the time being). In lieu of $30/$40 for this attachment, I figured I would mount the mill on the underside of the factory base and use a trashcan or similar with a hole cut in the bottom. My new hardware arrived today, and after playing with it for a few, realized I will be needing a way to direct my grain into the roller gap. This is my yet to be tested solution.



^The unboxing. The main assembly if massive.


^At any other time in my life I would have been more than happy to cut myself a base board for this, however living in an apartment has it's limitations...routing being one of them.


^Baseboard/mill underside.


^Today we use salvaged aluminum panel from a server chassis. The base board was used as a template for screw hole placement and sheet sizing. Somewhat of a mistake as the baseboard screw holes themselves were not well placed in the board. Enlarging the holes took care of alignment issues.


^Material removed using a large jeweler's saw.


^Edges filed and clean....


^Halved.


^It's hard to see, but I cut inward 1/2" on either side of each panel on what was measured to be the inside of the mill frame. I am using the vise as a straight edge to bend against.


^Bend angle was estimated and only needed a slight adjustment later on.

^Voila.


I'm optimistic.

nice and clean!

You may find you will need some triangles on each end of the rollers where they come close to the end plates. If you get too much grain there it will start having issues.

onthekeg said:

You may find you will need some triangles on each end of the rollers where they come close to the end plates. If you get too much grain there it will start having issues.

Click to expand...

Beat me to it. I had jambing problems and adding the triangles solved the problem The grain was getting to the end of the roll and pinching aginst the base. Nice job, you will love the mill.

Many thanks for the suggestion good sirs. Will definitely look into it.

I'd love to see a pic of these "triangles" along with any other pics of funnels and hoppers. A grain mill is most likely in my near future.

Consider it done. I'll work on a solution either this weekend or as the work week starts.

^Here we are again, with the same sheet of enameled aluminum, measured out and ready for chopping. Same set of tools will be used for these, with the addition of a wrench used in place of my caliper (it's around here somewhere...)








^Mounting holes drilled






^Voila. Should be sufficient so long as I don't need to adjust the gap of these rollers. I'll tackle that when needed.

Now on to the hopper.

Looking good!