Flour from a… meat grinder

More and more often the editorial office receives letters and phone calls with the same request — to publish drawings and explain how to build a simple flour mill with your own hands. The need for such a device is felt not only by rural residents but also by city dwellers.

“Modelist-Constructor” has already written several times about homemade flour mills. Here is another simple design — by V. Arkhipov, our reader from the settlement of Oktyabrsky, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

As the illustrations show, Arkhipov’s mill is an ordinary meat grinder fitted with a special attachment. This approach avoided making a housing as well as feed and drive mechanisms. You only need to make three parts; according to the author, he used a lathe and a file.

Thus, the attachment consists of an auger with four helical flutes on the outside and a cone with eight longitudinal flutes on the inside. One end of the auger has a square hole for coupling to the meat grinder’s worm shaft. The cone is attached to the meat grinder body with the standard clamp nut. A stop prevents the auger from moving axially. It is made from an M6 screw threaded into a stirrup welded to the cone and, in the working position, is locked with a jam nut.

For the auger and cone of the flour-mill attachment, V. Arkhipov used tool steel U8A. After machining, the parts were hardened (to HRC 58…60).

With the mill attachment you can grind any groats and even mill coffee beans. If you wish, it is not hard to drive it with a slow-speed electric motor and a gearbox. In that case, however, extra care is required when using the modified mill.

“Modelist-Constructor” No. 8’96