Monumental Day - Hammer Mill with Cyclone

Bought the twin to this New Holland hammer mill this afternoon, a gift at $150.00.

The mill is currently driven from the PTO from a tractor, you need about 75 horse power to run the mill, the unit consists of the hammer mill located at the front, a cyclone to collect dust, a hopper to hold product with an auger to off load product.

I'm going to power it up with an older Mineapolis Moline diesel tractor with a turbo charged 6 cylinder engine.



This mill will beat the snot out of house wiring, ribbon cable, dryer cords, christmass lights and such, pretty much what ever fits in the feed shoot will be pulverised. Last mill I had was powered with a 10 hp electric, not enough power.

I mainly feed it rheostats from hot water tanks and electric ranges and timers from washers and dryers to liberate the silver from brass and copper bus bars, did a great job. But due to the lack of horse power required patence. Now I'll have a larger mill with lots of horse power.

The only thing I'll be doing different this time os passing the outoput from the mill over a shacker table to seperate the silver from the copper and brass.

My mill is identicle to the one below, also got a good selction of screens.

Hammer mills are awesome, mine with the cyclone will remove the lighter crap. Will have to play around a bit with the air flow to seperate the heavier plastic insulation from the copper.

Those nasty alluminum copper AC rads, the output material easily seperated using the shaker table.

Alloy, a couple of the best videos I've seen on these systems. I hope to see your videos soon. Mike

Since we're interested in things seperating copper from insulation I'll go into some detail as to how the table works. There is two versions to chose from bumping or oscilating, they both peform well.

The bumping table gives a quick forward motion then on the return hits a solid bumper that gives the table a shock which tends to move the heavier stuff forward the water also helps move stuff forawrd as well wash the junk over the side for discard. This type of table has to be secured otherwise it dances around and they're very noisey.

An oscilating table runs much quiter with the advantage the table frame etc does not have to be bolted to a concrete floor to keep it from dancing around, this table probably needs a heavier film of water, The offset on the cranksaft that produces the ocsilaltion is 3/4".

As the table top become covered with heavies and lighter material water washes the lighter stuff over the side for discard same as the bumping table, here's the game changer the water a fluid moving forward then as the table quickly chages direction with the sudden change of direction the water rushes forward carring the heavier material along.

Water in itself is CDN gallon 9.9 lbs.

Tables are fairly simple, been around since the late 1880's, I'm going with the oscilating version also longer table work much better than a short one, some manufactues double deck them with the top table feeding onto a lower table to maximize performance.

The table used for the motherboards appears to use a solid rubber mat with the grooves having been cut into the mat, not sure if a dado blade could be fitted into skill saw to make these slots. For those of you that do not have welding skills a wood frame would work.

Very interesting overall but my question is with low value in scrap right now is it worth all this effort.........I understand your retired and as a hobby sounds fun but as a true biz plan would the effort/electricity/fuel/water etc cost kinda make this a futile effort........Wish you luck in all your endeavors just seems to me turn and burn is the best game plan at this point

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Very interesting overall but my question is with low value in scrap right now is it worth all this effort.........

Maybe, maybe not, for those of us living in other coutrys with our own currencys being erroded I would have to say yes it makes the effort worthwhile when your able to recover copper, gold, silver and platinum group metals all based on the USD.

When I sell these metals I'm playing on a level field.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

I understand your retired and as a hobby sounds fun but as a true biz plan would the effort/electricity/fuel/water etc cost kinda make this a futile effort........Wish you luck in all your endeavors just seems to me turn and burn is the best game plan at this point

Thanks for the best wishes, yes I'm retired and I like to keep myself busy and I especially enjoy the challange of putting something together with most nothing. Eventually this project will show a return on investment which will be no more than a couple of grand.

Even if the project is bust I'll own a collector tractor had I gone to the Casino would have nothing to show for my money. I'm addicted to surrounding myself with junk.

Earleir on in the scrap forum I posted in a thread how I made a car trailer from an old RV, turning the profit into a crane truck along with the many loads of scrap cars and trucks I managed to haul with that truck. Have since long ago sold the truck but have the use of it whenever I need it.

I post these projects in hopes of giving encouragment to others, I've never been one to turn and burn.

Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot

Alloy...just..wow.

I thought I'd just see a cool hammer mill, but I learned a bunch to. Thanks for posting and as always keep it up, plenty of us enjoy these projects of yours. Of course, I thought living on the sailboat was pretty cool, so feel free to post up that experience if you feel so inclined. As one who has an eventually will full time in a rv, I find such stories interesting.

Anyhow...excellent posts, an a bunch of useful info for those new to the forums or even the old hands. Always interesting how each of us does our own thing, an so many ways to do it.

Good thread..I'll be checking back.

Sirscrapalot - If you think you know it all, you clearly don't. - Anonymous

Owning a sailboat is like having an anchor tied arround your neck, you can not leave them unattended for fear of them sinking or the bildge pump discharging an oil slick into the harbour. Paid six thousand for the boat and sold it for 1500 $$$ just to get it out of my name.

I'll have to retract my stament that I made to mikelinreco, caught red handed in my first turn and burn.

Had the most enjoyment from the Honda 1100, which I sold before coming back to the prairies.

The thing that makes this project interesting is the potiential products that can be run through the process. We've had members who processed insulated wire for a business and a constant for them quality and quanity of the wire. They were constantly pushing for more product to process due to the small margins they work with.

Your project strikes me as one that could produce profit on other type materials that could result in a better margin to work with.

What is the size of the screen(s)? Again thank you for sharing. 73, Mike

Cool very interesting and I always scan your threads........Seems like stuff I want to do in retirement (tinker with metals, projects etc).......For now the good ole U.S dollar is worth more than the metals I'm dealing with so I turn them into cash as fast as I can.......I really don't keep up with foreign currency but I do know the Euro has basically collapsed as it was supposed to be the new standard but in the end American money is still what every one wants

I just looked at some exchange rates did I look at it correct.........One Canadian Dollar is only worth .75 cents to an American Dollar......Also if I read correctly looks like the Brittish Pound is doing quite well I guess because of the value of the Euro keeps collapsing