Hammer Mills

If your in farming country check around some of the hog farms, most had their own hammer mills.

I have two a light duty 5 hp and very heavy duty 7.5 hp, both mills came with a good assortment of screens.

The smaller mill is used to shred electric thermostats from electric ranges, hot water tanks, timers from washing machines and dryers to recover the silver contacts.

My larger mill will shred **** near shred anything you feed it, I mainly use the large mill to shred the plugs from computer cables to recover the gold plated pins.

I have feed the large mill satellite LNA's and B's then used a magnet to pick out the iron, which would have been the screws and some other trash. After it goes through the mill they so not look like screws anymore just balled up nodes.

The aluminum fractures almost like broken glass.

The output size of your shred will vary depending on the hole size of the screen installed, for instance a 1/8" hole size will make fine shred while 3/8" will be larger and 1/2" screen even larger.

Another thing I use the large mill for is cleaning heavy copper wire, the cooper and insulation are both liberated rather quickly. it's an easy task to separate the plastic from the shredded copper.

Just put the shredded material into a plastic pail then give it a couple of shakes, the heavy copper falls to the bottom while the plastic rises to the top where you can skim it off.



I try to keep things like stainless steel and iron out of my feedstock, it raises cane with the screens, but non ferrous metals and plastics are fair game.

Paid $200.00 each for these mills with screens. The large hammer mill is worth over 7 grand, it's lined with heavy amour plate.

Gil, could you give the brand name model, pictures. Also what are they used for on the hog farm, processing feed? I have lots of hog farms in this area and might be able to pick one up. Sounds like it might be useful to process low grade boards as well, what do you think? Mike

Originally Posted by gustavus

...The large hammer mill is worth over 7 grand, it's lined with heavy amour plate.

did you manage to pick that one up for the same $200, or did it cost you closer to its estimated value?

just contacted my friend who lives on his family owned pig farm here in NJ... this might be just what im looking for.

too bad he's in jail... might have to wait a while for him to get out

THe priceis right for him too. $200 dont seem like a bad deal.

Very cool and informative. All I come to expect from you.

One of these days when you have far too much time on your hands run some random insulated wire thru your granulator. Then do the gravity/water seperation thing and let us know how that works.

Thanks, Mike.

Originally Posted by miked

Very cool and informative. All I come to expect from you.

One of these days when you have far too much time on your hands run some random insulated wire thru your granulator. Then do the gravity/water seperation thing and let us know how that works.

Thanks, Mike.

Mike I have already tried wire, of the copper and aluminum species in my larger mill. It does a nice job of making little ball bearings out of your copper there was no need to use water to separate the plastic from the copper merely shaking to bucket settles the copper bringing the plastic to the top for easy skimming.

The only problem was I had the small screen installed and I got some very fine copper powder along with the larger balls, had I used a larger screen this problem would have been likely eliminated.

The wire run was as you say only an experiment, It costs money to run that 7.5 hp electric motor were incineration costs me next to nothing

From my above post on the electro recovered copper from the cell, my yard pays out on number two fro that, I could melt it into dore then get paid out as number 1 but the added expense is not justified.

Besides it's not like I have tons of that type of copper, the little I do get is going to be turned back into copper sulfate.

Thanks for your response, Gus. I wish I had the space and equipment to play with. I will probably be going with a wire stripper to start with. If I am ever able to get a place in the country or an industrial building I may try out a hammer mill. Please keep us informed of your interesting activities, Mike.

I have found that the doors off a microwave oven act as great sieves (screens).