DIY shrinking and washing machine
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I made a small format shrinking and washing machine. It's made out of three five gallon buckets, a powerful drill I had laying around, and some cast iron fittings, and two 3/4 id lawnmower bearings. I'm still testing it out but the clip inside keeps the jeans from being twisted or skewed while the water moves around the jeans.
I am probably going to have to get a small high torque motor because the drill labors and gets quite hot after running about an hour. It has to move close to 30 pounds of denim and water so that's a lot of load on the motor.
When I am am confident everything is working properly I will use it to shrink my UHR pair I have am maybe to wash my other jeans.
There's a video of it here (I'm not sure why it won't embed).
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Epic Mike! Wondering whether you could avoid the motor using gears i.e. small wheel on the drill and large wheel on the shaft into the barrel. It would spin slower but should alleviate torque overheating
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Dude this is hardcore cool!!!!
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Epic Mike! Wondering whether you could avoid the motor using gears i.e. small wheel on the drill and large wheel on the shaft into the barrel. It would spin slower but should alleviate torque overheating
I am probably going to rig up a pulley on a small 12v DC motor or maybe an air motor eventually. I don't have a background in engineering or anything like that. Just redneck engineering
Dude this is hardcore cool!!!!
thanks Rox
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I feel like this should have its own page on Wikipedia: "The Filthy Denim Shrinking & Washing Machine"
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@Filthy:
Just redneck engineeringYee haw brother, looking forward to seeing this evolve. Hopefully it does not become sentient and plunge humanity into a dystopian future
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I think those worst case is I might break a couple fingers or burn the house down.
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@Filthy:
I think those worst case is I might break a couple fingers or burn the house down.
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as long as that's all, full speed ahead -
I tried out various motors and stuff on my washer. Even a powerful air motor (that works great until the tank on the compressor runs out in like two minutes) and settled on a hand crank.
I made it out of an old corroded combination wrench I had. This is ready to wash some pants now.
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These long vertical creases are why I don't like washing my jeans in my washer. This happened on both my Samsung and LG front loaders even in the delicate cycle, no spin.
The clip inside and the internal dimensions of the five gallon bucket keep the jeans from twisting or skewing while the water circulates around the jeans.
I just cranked them for about ten minutes and am leaving them soak for a while. Then I'll crank em some more. Then rinse as usual.
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The washer seems to work really well. Plenty of dirty blue water was in the bucket.
I rinsed them in the tub twice and am leaving them drip. When they stop dripping I'll put the jeans over a couple box fans to dry.
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I might be crazy IRL, but Id like to think I'm more of a redneck engineer.
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Drying on some fans. Should be dry by morning.The part of Hoahmaru (from Samurai Spirits) is now being played by Robert Smith of the Cure
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LMAO I'm glad someone does. I've had that poster since the 90s and I always thought it was funny.
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