Home Coffee Roasting with an RK Drum, part 4

I assembled the base plate for my motor assembly, but it's not pretty. The angle iron was the key to putting it together.

First, I cut a piece of the aluminum tread sheet, about 12" x 6". This would be the vertical support for the gear motor. I used a mallet and a vise to bend this to a right angle.

The next step was to cut the vertical slots for mounting the motor. To do this, I started by drilling the corners of the slots and then enlarged them using a saw bit. Boy, was this the hard way to do something, especially with the hardened aluminum sheet.

I cut a 18" length of the 1.5"x1.5" aluminum "angle iron." This would be the visible edge of the motor assembly as well as supporting both the base and the vertical sections. I glued the bent faceplate to the angle piece using "JB Weld" hot temperature epoxy. Then I cut another piece of the aluminum treaded sheet at about 18" by 6" to be the visible base plate, and glued that to the previous assembly.

Mounting the gear motor was no biggie. I bought some brass machine screws at my local hardware store for the mounting holes and used split washers to make sure they held.

I used a small plastic project box , a mini toggle switch, a strain-relief plug (package of assorted sizes, and insulated male/female quick connectors from Radio Shack and a length of extension cord to provide power to the motor.

I gave up on the concept of using clamps to hold the motor in place on the grill. My more simple solution was to (1) cut two short dowels, (2) drill through them, (3) insert some metal loops from an old swag lamp's chain into the dowels to use as "stops", (4) and drill two matching holes through the base plate and the grill shelf. Now, I just set the motor on the grill shelf, line up the holes, push in the dowel plugs, hook up the power, start the grill and go...

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Copyright © 2004-2006 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.