Ballmill, Suggestions?

I am wanting to build a ballmill. I have a few ideas kicking around in my head but would like some ideas.

I found your thread on another forum Gus and was excited to see pictures and read up on it but your posts were gone.

My idea is to use a 20 gallon air tank and mount on each end garage door torsion tube bearings. I have the bearings , bearing plates , and the torsion tube to use as an axle.
I am thinking bicycle chain and sprockets as the drive train as they are easy and cheap to obtain.

A garage door opener would be great as it is geared and is set up with sprocket(not same chain as bicycle though) but will not work! The motor is not made for constant use.

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks
Joe

Get a motor from a dryer and weld a sprocket to it. OR do a belt drive instead of a chain maybe? Just an idea that popped into my head.

I was also thinking about the pulley stack off an old drill press or lathe. I want to have a choice of speeds.

Thanks for the thoughts.

That should wrk real good. I would think you would need a stronger motor then the drillpress one though.

Yes I agree. I merely want to borrow the pulley stack. There is 3 or 4 pulleys of different sizes all together for different speeds.

This may be a noob question, but what would a ball mill be used for if you dont mind me asking?

pulverizing scrap for separation.

would a dryer or washer tub stand up to the beating. if it would it could be a pretty versatile tool as a ball mill, the holes in the tub would make a great sifter, and the size of the material could be guaged by adding screen arround the out side of the tub.

[QUOTE= but once you learn something no one can ever take it away from you.[/QUOTE]

Oh yes they can. Frontal Lobotomy. I think thats how they spell it.

JK I agree with KZ well put just be careful is all.

Sam, I agree that the spinning bowel is an unlikely item to use but there are other mechanical ways to reduce the material. Once its reduced I hope to remove the al, lead/tin from the cu and possible pms. I am very restricted to what I can do, limited to lifting 25 lbs. In response to my physical limits I am trying to maximise my return on what I can get. I look forword to your continued contributions here, Mike.

I like the idea of a LPG tank on its side with a shaft at each end, I'd thought up to now that it would be on two rollers.

I'd been talking to a guy about my problem of cleaning brass bullet shells, they use a rumbler, I tried making one from a microwave turntable etc & it didn't work, just slid all over the place.
He said he had been doing something similar with copper tubes & cleaning the wooden turned products he makes.
He uses one shaft connected to a motor via V belt, on the shaft he hangs a wide car tire & just chucks everything into that, its open to the air too.

I still need something like a rumbler/ballmill though, I figure I can make it windmill powered, no electricity needed & 24hrs a day when it slighty windy.

Ballmill media? Big ball bearings is the most obvious, used metal turning Tungsten Carbide tips may work too.
The only ballmill I have seen is about 30 feet dia, uses baseball sized & smaller metal balls.
Been told by someone that if a single ball is missing from the mix, they can tell when they sieve the dust down, thats out of tons of balls....

Anybody given any thought to Cyclonic separation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclonic_separation

A meat tumbler might work. I used to have this model shown below. Had variable speed. Air tight so you won't lose any PM dust.