Extractor conversion

[Moonshae]

When I had a few hives as a teenager, we purchased a 2-frame extractor, used. It was a hand crank model, but the mechanism was broken so it wasn't possible to get the velocity needed to spin the basket (we didn't know about crush and strain, thought extractor was the only way). My father and grandfather, being handy generally and tinkerers by nature, removed the mechanism from the top and attached a pulley for a belt. Then we used an electric motor attached to a board and moved it away to tighten the belt and cause it to grab the pulley to spin the baskets. This worked, after a few blown out combs from going too fast.

The motor is long gone, and I am not handy without having some sort of instructions guiding me along. My attempts to cobble something generally end disastrously or simply waste a lot of time and generally money, too. Anybody think it would be possible to easily use a motor from one of the motorized extractors on this one that I have? The motor on a board with a belt running between them is a little too unsafe for me now.

If I can't modify the extractor I have, I'll have to switch to crush and strain, because I'm tapped out from my hive investments. Of course, I won't be needing to extract until next year, but I like to be prepared and plan ahead.

When I have a functional camera, I'll take pics of the mechanism on top of the extractor and edit this post  to include them.

Edit: Here is the pic. I didn't realize how nasty the inside is, looks like it needs to be sandblasted or something, I think.

[doak]

Should be able to pick up a secondhand job for around $100.
If I get a new 9 frame job this fall, like I plan to, I'll have a 4 frame job for sell. It will take 4 frames of any size or mix and match.
Put two deep frames in opposite each other then put shallow or medium in the other two spaces opposite.
It is stainless steel.
doak.

[Brian D. Bray]

The motor adaption you describe is one I've had experience with.  It had the problem of having only one speed--fast.  So you were at full tilt as soon as you turned it on, that is why the combs would blow out. 

I would modify the set up buy installing a take up pully.  That way the basket isn't ingaged with the motor until you take up the slack with the extra pully.  By increasing or decreasing the tension on the take up pully you have greater control over the speed of the basket.  Making a lever to move the takeup pully and then building a series of notches in a metal bar--you can gradually increase and decrease the speed of the basket through more or less tension.  The notches would work the same way that you change the wheel height on your push lawnmower.