DIY Grain Mill Idea. What Do You Think??

The biggest hurdle are the rollers. I propose the following. The rollers will be cast from cement!!! A 10 inch by 3 inch diameter pvc pipe will be fitted with a 3 inch to .5 inch reducer an each end (see pic below) and and have a .5 inch threaded rod centered in the two fittings. Once the form is assembled with the rod in place it will be filled with cement and left to cure. Once cured the pvc mold is cut away leaving a perfectly round roller.

What do you guys think???

Here is a pic of the reducer from flexpvc.com

It has been done before. Different method but it will work. Getting rollers with a true face is the hard part.

Your "mold" must be fairly perfect to get the right tolerances.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-diy-low-budget-concrete-roller-grain-mill-119521/

BargainFittings said:

It has been done before. Different method but it will work. Getting rollers with a true face is the hard part.

Your "mold" must be fairly perfect to get the right tolerances.

Click to expand...

Pvc pipe is perfectly round and the reducers are there to center the shaft

PVC pipe is not perfectly round. I've worked with it for many years and it is not even close to the tolerance of a milled steel roller.

With that said I still think you can make a workable product that will crush grain. The PVC fittings will be a closer tolerance than the pipe itself and will give you some centering of the roller but it still will not be perfect.

None of this is said to dissuade you from making a concrete roller mill. I've even thought of how to sell that very product.

Yes, it's been done and this book tells you how:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037W4YOQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I have a copy of that book, but I don't know where it is at the moment or I would look up the how to stuff on the concrete roller malt mill and pass it along. I think that they used steel pipe for the molds and the rollers were large, like 6 inch diameter. It's been awhile since I read about it, so I could be mistaken. How to make the mill so that it was easily and accurately adjustable might be the biggest challenge. I've never quite understood the desire to make one's own mill as the commercial versions are relatively inexpensive. OTOH, I do understand the DIY drive. I have a lot of that in me too, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Keep posting back and let us know how this project progresses.

Nice idea for the PVC form, you may still need to true the rollers. I read of this being done by spinning the rollers and trueing them w/ a grinder. good luck w/ the project.