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Mullers.
An essential piece of equipment,
It is possible to mix foundry sand by hand, and quite successful moulds have been made using this method for many generations, but the amateur foundry man will not have the space nor time to laboriously mix small quantities of sand to the quality that a Muller can.
This is where I stood some months ago I thought that "well I only need small quantities of sand why go to all of the bother to build a Muller",
- Where do you mix the sand without contaminating it during the mixing process
- The time taken to thoroughly mix the sand and leaving it to stand to absorb the water
Where with a Muller you simply pour the dry sand in and set in motion slowly adding a little water as is required, no standing time is required as the crushing action of the wheels rapidly mixes the clay and water whilst keeping the body of the sand fluffy and light all in one simple action then straight into the moulding box.
Sounds a bit like a cake mix!!
I looked at all of the designs that were published on the net some were horrendously powerful machines that would mix huge quantities of sand and some were so complex it was mind blowing, I eventually settled on a method that would both stir and crush the best design example that I found is to be found on this site, I have only down engineered it a little but the basic design is as detailed here http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/hite/muller/muller.html
The general components used were a worm gear reduction gear box with approximately 30:1 reduction ratio, this came coupled onto a 1/3 3 phase electric motor via a flexible coupling,
not what I wanted as I do not have any three phase power to my workshop but with a quick addition of a sutable capacitor, it was up and running in next to no time.
I based the design around a 45 gallon oil drum, as these are about the right size and simple to get hold of, I manufactured a simple light steel tube frame to sit it on and built it from memory from the ground up tackling the problems as they arose.
The general method of working is as shown in the following photo's and AutoCAD drawings in DWG or dxf format can be sent by e-mail on request or if a postage paid self addressed envelope is sent a printed copy will be provided
A *.dxf or *.pdf format can be supplied on request.
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My muller in operation A short movie n 