What do you do when you buy a broken shredder and, upon disassembly, find its gears in pieces? You might reach towards your 3D printer – this one’s not that kind of shredder, however. [New Yorkshire Workshop] gives us a master class on reviving equipment and putting it to good use – this one’s assigned to help turn their cardboard stores into briquettes for their wood burner.
But first, of course, it had to be fixed – and fixed it was, the crucial parts re-designed and re-built around a sturdy wooden frame. It was made into a machine built to last; an effort not unlikely to have been fueled with frustration after seeing just how easily the stock gears disintegrated. The stock gear-based transmission was replaced with a sprocket and chain mechanism, the motor was wired through a speed controller, and a washing machine pulley was used to transfer power from the motor to the freshly cleaned and re-oiled shredder mechanism itself. This shredder lost its shell along the way, just like a crab does as it expands – and this machine grew in size enough to become a sizeable benchtop appliance.
After cutting loads of cardboard into shredder-fitting pieces, they show us the end result – unparalleled cardboard shredding power, producing bags upon bags of thinly sliced cardboard ready to be turned into fuel, making the workshop a bit warmer to work in. The video flows well and is a sight to see – it’s a pleasure to observe someone who knows their way around the shop like folks over at [New Yorkshire Workshop] do, and you get a lot of insights into the process and all the little tricks that they have up their sleeves.
The endgoal is not reached – yet. The shredder’s output is not quite suitable for their briquette press, a whole project by itself, and we are sure to see the continuation of this story in their next videos – a hydraulic briquette press was suggested as one of the possible ways to move from here, and their last video works on exactly that. Nevertheless, this one’s a beast of a shredder. After seeing this one, if you suddenly have a hunger for powerful shredders, check this 3D printed one out.
That’s a decent shredder!
Though if the aim was to shred cardboard into small pieces, you could have got a puppy instead :)
I thought those only work for magazines, newspapers, and important documents.
…and homework….
(is that still a thing?)
But teacher, my dog ate my iPad.
We had one that shredded a bag of aluminum cans into very small shreds. Not a drop of blood on him, either. (Labrador retrievers get separation anxiety and display it in a variety of ways: The Crate of Ramen Noodle Cups Incident. The Box of Crayons Incident. Every Blanket Put in His Kennel Incident….
I think it must be a lab thing. Ours chews aluminum cans to shreds and has never lost a drop of blood. Still, we try hard to not let her get a hold of cans, just in case some day she does hurt herself.
Can confirm.
Labwhilers LOVE beer.
Solution: Beer in bottles and a bowl for the happy drunk dog.
The bearing and shaft sizes are way too small for anything
thats going to provide the amount of fuel to heat a house year on year.
An ordinary pto powered chipper and pellet mill will process just about any clean dry organic matter into fuel pellets,yard waste,trees,sea weed,cardboard,manure.
He writes “all I wanted to do is shred cardboard” and I assume that will work for quite a while, when feeding one single card board sheet after the other. Until the brass shims between axle and wheel break…. Really, that is a bold idea to build it that way.
Replacing a broken, hardened steel gear train with a bicycle chain could be called ‘bold’, there are better words though.
I’ve got to wonder if the OP has ever had his/her hands on internal combustion timing chains and/or gears. Could just be insufficiently broad horizons to select off the shelf parts for the fix. Could just be optimism and youth.
It will be fine, until it jams hard. Then metal bits will fly, possibly much faster then expected.
Hand feeding single sheets of cardboard into this thing impute a tiny rate for the value of the operators time.
TMNT cannot defeat this Shredder……
Just keep your fingers away from that big pulley!
Very nicely done video. I like the use of captions rather than talk.
yes, the unguarded pulley is a potential hazard, but the speed of the shredder is excessive and, in my opinion, a greater threat.
It literally yanks the stock out of the operator’s hand. At some point, someone will be caught off guard, and the result will be hand-burger.
The cardboard is fed through a slot that is too small for a hand to fit through. Less speed and more torque certainly wouldn’t hurt though.
Need the confettie type shredder perhaps.
I could really use that machine, I currently use shredded cardboard as carbon component of vermicomposting. Shredded cardboard/paper, egg shells, used coffee grounds, all organic scraps from kitchen, reduced to new dirt using red wigglervearth worms. Used to amend soil and grow plants.. Great repurpose! Resurrection.