8 replies to this topic

[kenaisteve]

Thought I'd pass along this photo of a grape crusher I made last summer. Doing a google search I came across a plan for this from an old article in Mother Earth News somewhere in the neverland of the web.
Anyhow, having assorted pieces of Oak and Oak plywood around, I had enough to make what you see, needing to only buy the Oak dowel for the axle and the SS hardware. A few coats of polyureathane and it was ready for business with less than $15 invested.
This fall I used it to crush a few hundred pounds of grapes and it worked just fine. Every so often you have to push some down the sloping bottom, but not a big problem compared to crushing by hand.
I improvised a bit from the plans, a sliding axle holder to adjust for different size grapes, and the beads on the drum were made from scraps of oak instead of small dowels and then screwed on. Otherwise, close in size and construction to the article I found.

 crusher0.JPG   570.14K   479 downloads

[WineThief]

Very Kewl, When you get a chance can you post the plans for this. I am sure alot of folks might want to look at them and maybe make one.

Terry

[kenaisteve]

Yeh, thought people might ask so I went and google'd it again:

http://www.motherear...ech__Hand_Tools

The basic plans are there, like I said, I modified a few things, If you've done some basic woodworking, you'll likely have a few ideas of your own.

[kilroy]

Very Coool -

Thanks

ANdrew

[Jon Foster]

Great idea. It looks like it works perfectly.

Jon.

[Hans978]

Love the basic idea. Just can't down load the plans. please help

Hans

[Hans978]

JUST FOUND THE PLANS MYSELF. MOTHER EARTH July/August 1984
LOOKS SIMPLE ENOUGH.

[DesertDance]

Love it when posters actually use the search feature to bring attention to some of these great older posts! The first picture is so much clearer than the one in the article. Been watching too much DIY network stuff while JD is fishing this week! Now even I'm inspired to try this!

[Ticino Vintner]

Sweet. But I still want to see my wife stomp on thes grapes instead.