Our Country Living Grain Mill - Hooked Up To Electricity

Country Living grain mill without cover

cover installed

with cover on

all hooked up cover in background

Grain mill cover

So I finally got around to hooking up an electric motor to our "Country Living" grain mill. 

It's a Lathe motor (1 HP) I got at a garage sale for $20. It has the advantage of variable speed settings by adjusting the belt. It has plenty of power for this use.

I first noticed that when hooked up to electricity the mill worked so well that it was spitting some wheat and cuttings out the sides making a mess and also throwing some on the floor. I wanted to eliminate the waste and reduce the likelihood of mice - so I built a snug-fitting cover (see pic) that slides into place over the mill end. the cover pretty much eliminates most all of the side spray directing it down to the bin in the bottom.

This thing now works great - we can grind a pound of hard red wheat groats or corn. or whatever, into a fine flour in about 5 minutes. This compares
nicely to the 20-25 minutes of hard hand cranking this thing used to require. In a power-off scenario I'll hook it up to a bicycle. I still need
to build that.