Grain Mill / Drill Connection

I’ve got a two-roller Monster Mill and every time I go to connect my half inch drill I end up shredding a knuckle holding onto the drill so it tightens up enough to get the mill rolling. Seems to me a hex-shaped end on the grain mill shaft would have been a better design.

Anyone have any tricks?

Without any grain in it can you turn it freely by hand ?

I had a similar problem with my Barley Crusher. Got tired of playing with the drill & it was dinging up the shaft pretty good. I happened to get an electric motor from work, bought a couple pulleys online and a v-belt. It took a little engineering & cost a few bucks, but now it’s all mounted to a cabinet & works like a dream. Just hit a switch & off to the races! It’s a great addition to your equipment if you can swing it. :slight_smile:

I tighten with Channel Lock pliers.

Could you grind a flat spot, and then attach some sort of bushing with a set screw? Something that your drill could grab onto a bit easier?

I also went ahead and motorized my mill, but I used a low RPM, high torque, direct drive motor. The motor was a freebie to me, so that’s what I went with. I’ve read on here that crushing at low speeds might be a factor in lower efficiency (something that has plagued me on and off), so I’ve thought about rebuilding my mill with a higher RPM motor. But with small kids around, I really like the safety factor of having no fast-moving sheaves involved.


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Got the same 2-roller Monster and I have the same problem. The flats on the shaft are indeed too small, I keep thinking I’m going to grind some better ones but haven’t yet. I like using the drill because it is more compact and I can use the drill for other things. I suppose we could make something like the coupling the last poster showed.

Great set up El Capitan! Love the coupler! That’s a lifetime warranty.

Yes. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to this.

I finagled with it a bit one day. Got it to tighten, and just left the drill on there. I think it has to do with the weight of the grain. If I can get a “running start”, and then put the grain in, it seems to work out all right.

I’m wondering where that coupler came from shown in the photo. I would be interested in that.

Its a love joy coupling and tractor supply sell them.

I got the coupler at a local parts store. National Bushing? The nice thing is the little rubber piece that eases the stress on both of the metal couplers. Puts a little wiggle room in the system.

One word of caution - the JSP has two plastic inserts which limit the amount of open roller space. When I removed both of them, the crush was a lot faster because the grain was falling through the entire width of the rollers. But it kept seizing up on me, so I had to add back one of the plastic limiters. Now my mill works great, but I’m really only utilizing half of the roller area.

I read that with the small roller mills like the Monster or Barley Crusher you want to keep the RPMs around 100 to 150. Much faster and you will shred the grain. It will tapered and torn on one end.

Citation?

I’m in the same boat as El Cap., with a high-torque, low-RPM motor (as they were all the rage just a few years ago), but like him have also read that a high-RPM is ideal. The reference I’m aware of that touts high RPM mills is from BYO, published in the last year.

See:

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