Manual Hand Crank Honey Extractor Gear Lubrication ..

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15
14
Christchurch
Experience
Commercial
We have a little 2 frame extractor that's squeaking .. The gears are enclosed [remove plate to view gears] - what do people [with little manual extractors] use to lubricate the gears ?
ok with my mechanical design engineer (yes i am degree qual'd) hat on - gears don't squeak, not never!! not al all, bearings do squeak however. ok now with my beekeepers hat on my spinner also had a squeak. it was the bottom bearing. I pulled the cage out, cleaned the bearing, used food grade grease and boom all good, well kind of, all it does now is vibrate and walk across the floor. at least its quiet. lol
 
16
5
Wellington
Experience
Hobbyist
ok with my mechanical design engineer (yes i am degree qual'd) hat on - gears don't squeak, not never!! not al all, bearings do squeak however. ok now with my beekeepers hat on my spinner also had a squeak. it was the bottom bearing. I pulled the cage out, cleaned the bearing, used food grade grease and boom all good, well kind of, all it does now is vibrate and walk across the floor. at least its quiet. lol
Thank you - I'll put up with the squeak until I have finished for the season then will grease the bearing ..
 
37
18
Auckland
Experience
Hobbyist
Does anybody using this honey extractor?

 

Trevor Gillbanks

Founder Member
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Does anybody using this honey extractor?

Is is a radial machine or a tangential machine. The advert does not say.
 
8,865
5,295
maungaturoto
Experience
Commercial
From the picture it looks radial
it would be interesting to se comments from those using it.
i suspect 6 frame radial will be rather tiring. rule of thumb is radial takes twice as long spin time. thats fine if its electric and you can fit double the amount of frames in there.
see if you can find a swing basket extractor.
 
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16
5
Wellington
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Does anybody using this honey extractor?

That looks like the same hardware as my 2 frame extractor ..
 
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37
18
Auckland
Experience
Hobbyist
Some updates on the 6 frame radial manual extractor.

I managed to get my order after some waiting time. Currently the shippig logistics in NZ is slow because many people(employees) are in self isolation.

20220312_150355.jpg

The extractor looks good overall however it is not a very good build in terms of quality.
There are some smaller issues and also some more alarming ones.

The mechanism looks good, runs well even if the axel is not sitting on a bearing. Will see how it performs in action.
The honey gate was easy to fit and there is no reason to be concerned about any leaking(it is a plastic honey gate).

There are 3 legs and the metal is thin so my idea is to fit few bits of wood inside those legs around the joining points. Also the palstic end caps are better to be replaced.

The plastic lids have sharp edges. Easy to fix with some sand paper. Also the lids do not have any hinge fittings. I will see what I can find in Mitre 10 Mega. Meanwhile I saw a video with this extractor in action and those beekeepers(Vietnam) did not use the lids at all.

Some bigger concerns.

I started assembling the extractor by fitting the legs to the top edge of the drum. When I moved to the bottom end I had to discover that the legs and the leg-jointer are far from each other. I managed to fit the bolts and nuts however I was afraid to tighten them too much. What if the welding at the bottom of the drum will break? I still have a 6 mm-ish gap at each leg. How will this hold itself under load? No idea.
My plan is to add washers to all bolts(top and bottom).

20220312_151624.jpg

Inside the drum at the bottom there are rusty welding points. Can not do too much about it.

20220312_151417.jpg20220312_151717.jpg
 
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typically i would screw the legs down to a pallet. otherwise it will tend to walk across the room.

it looks like it was built by a trained rat, you may have to pack the ends to get things lined up. the welding on the legs looks like it was done by the primary school. might pay to get someone to look over it.

the rust should clean out, might pay to get someone with some pickling/passivation acid to give it a going over.
 
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37
18
Auckland
Experience
Hobbyist
I managed to finish the improvements on my new extractor, $20. I will leave the anchoring to a pallet for mater.
Meanwhile I need an advice for a braking system.
Maybe a wheel attached to the handle's axel? It will be useful to have thiscfeature to stop the extractor whenever I want to.
 
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i doubt the gearbox will handle much load. you can easily put on more load braking than you would hand cranking.
any braking needs to be fairly light.
if you make anything complex it may be better/cheaper to fit an electric motor and speed control (which has braking).
 
37
18
Auckland
Experience
Hobbyist
As a bit of a good new on my new extractor.
While I gave a good wash(inside) with hot water and a bit of dishwashing liquid all the "rust" came off in a form of a jelly looking something.
In fact there is no rust at all, and not sure what that jelly stuff is. I tried to use a knife, before, when I discovered those brown spots, with no success. But now when hot water was involved the butter knife removed all of it.
 

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37
18
Auckland
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is that pitting or just water droplets?

Just water.

It was easy to extract the pohutukawa, while the bush honey was no so easy. Next season I will try using a hand pricker.

As soon as you have 6+ kg of honey at the bottom of the extractor, it becomes stable.

There may be a mechanical problem in the future. When I pushed it fast as, it made a bad noise
 
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There may be a mechanical problem in the future. When I pushed it fast as, it made a bad noise
don't push it fast as :p
it all seriousness, the main factor in extracting honey from the frame is time. more speed doesn't make much quicker and you get a lot more damage and wear.
even on the commercial extractors they often come set at an excessive speed.
 
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37
18
Auckland
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Thanks @tristan , your advices always are spot on. And they are much appreciated.

Next season I will have to try spinning the extractor for longer. I foud that 150-200 revolutions were enough, however with your advice I will go for 350+ next time.
 


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