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Crusher:
I started making wines this year (2000) from local berries. It's fun but I soon tired of hand crushing, pressing and ending up with red, purple and black stained hands. Subsequently I made myself a berry crusher and a wine press. This crusher is made of white oak with a pine hopper and crank. The rollers and roller shafts are hardwood. First try, I fluted the driven roller (one with the crank attached) but left the other one smooth. I ran a pound of cranberries through it and found this initial design wanting.
The free spinning roller would hang up allowing the berries to just bounce
around in the hopper.
Note the roller spacing adjustment screws on the free spinning roller.
So! Back to the drawing board... I took the crusher apart, fluted the idle roller and installed a "belt drive" for the idle roller. It's pretty low tech but it worked. Note the blue, crossed, rubber band "belt" in the middle picture.
Unlike the wine press (everything wooden pegged) I put this crusher together
with screws to allow easy disassembly for cleaning and modification.
Wine Press:
While the crusher is my own -cut roughly to shape and bang to fit design-,
this press is based on Paul's Wine Press at: http://www/geocities.com/NapaValley/Vinvard/1762/press.html
The press is all white oak except for the collection tray (plywood and pine) and the "nut" holder (white pine). Everything is pegged together with hardwood pegs. The only metal in the press is the press screw and four screws to attached the "nut" holder.
Comments? Jim O'Neil