Sauerkraut is a tasty and healthy product. The most difficult operation in its preparation is chopping. Housewives manage to do this with the help various devices. One of them is powered by an electric motor and has parts and components taken from washing machine, which were produced in Soviet times.
The design of a homemade shredder includes a frame, which is welded using 20x20 mm corners. An electric motor and an additional vertical shaft with a bearing unit located below, carrying the working disk, are installed on it. The last one contains three knives. The front of rotation from the motor to the additional shaft is made of a belt, installing pulleys on them.
The shredder is covered with a body. It has a hole on top and a loading funnel through which cabbage heads are fed to the working disk. Below, under the disk, there is an exit window from which shredded cabbage is poured into a container placed below.
The frame, for convenience, is equipped with four support legs, for the manufacture of which a corner is used. The length of the legs is made different - this is necessary so that the plane of the working disk is inclined to the horizon by 30°. This simplifies the process of loading the funnel with cabbage heads and feeding them to the knives.
The most important part of a homemade shredder is the working disk. It is cut from a sheet of duralumin 2 mm thick. The edges of the disk are edged, bending down a strip 1 cm wide; this gives the part greater rigidity.
Three knives are evenly placed on the disk. They are made from a hacksaw blade or a scythe blade. It is better if they are crescent-shaped in plan, although they can also be made straight.
Mark the installation locations of the knives on the disk. Cut out sickle-shaped windows and push their edges up by 6 mm. On the resulting platforms, sickle-shaped knives are fastened with rivets. To remove the cabbage “noodles” under the disk, opposite installed knives, riveted corners made of duralumin.
The shredder body is made composite. Its lower part covers the working disk and has an exit window through which shredded cabbage pours out. The upper part covers the lower part and has a loading funnel into which cabbage heads are fed for shredding. They are made from steel sheets 0.5...0.75 mm thick. The joints are welded. You can use the material of the washing machine body, aluminum sheets. The first is connected with rivets, the second - by rolling the edges of the parts.
The bearing assembly consists of a housing, a shaft, and two bearings No. 80202. It is attached to the frame on a 20x20 mm corner and vertical plate of steel.
The V-belt drive fits from a washing machine. Its tension is ensured by rearranging the electric motor on the frame.
The working element is adjusted by lowering/raising the lower edge of the loading funnel relative to the working disk. The thickness of the cut in a homemade shredder is constant and depends on the design of the working disk and the position of the cutting knives on it.
This trick allows you to chop a head of cabbage for 2…3 minutes. For safety reasons, they should be fed to the working disk using a wooden pestle.
Every autumn it’s time to prepare vegetables in the form of a variety of pickles and canned salads. It's nice to treat yourself to this delicacy in winter.
No matter how many housewives prepare various appetizers and marinade salads, the central place in this vegetable wealth still occupies sauerkraut. But its appearance is preceded by a rather tedious and not very popular process of chopping heads of cabbage.
Many years ago, I remember, they said “chop the cabbage.” This is because a special chopping knife or hoe was used for this task, and not a cabbage shredder. Cabbage was chopped in a rounded wooden trough, linden or oak, and salted in it and stored until the next harvest.
And even though few people now ferment cabbage in whole barrels, they try to make the cutting process easier with the help of various devices. However, even for small volumes, a special knife with several sharp steel blades located at an angle was invented. This type of cabbage shredder (manual, as it is called) is absolutely safe and allows you to significantly speed up slicing and improve its quality. The result is an even thin straw, which with a regular knife Only a professional chef can prepare it. True, some skill is needed, but any housewife will quickly master this device; there is little wisdom.
A plastic cabbage shredder is suitable for small quantities. This simple device resembles a regular grater and is made of durable plastic with removable blades. Some products have a container for
A wooden shredder for cabbage is more productive and reliable; it is also a very simple device that many housewives prefer to use. You can buy it in a store or make it yourself. A wooden shredder is a board on which plate-like steel knives are mounted. The thickness of the cut pieces depends on the size of the gaps between the knives and the board. Usually wooden shredders for cabbage are made large sizes and install them directly above the salting container. For operational safety, some shredders are equipped with a moving hopper, shaped like a cube with a pressure lid. The head of cabbage is placed in the hopper, covered with a lid, and then moved forward onto the knives. This cabbage shredder is safe to use and has good performance.
All of the above devices make chopping only half as easy, because your hands still get tired of holding a head of cabbage. But technological progress, as we know, does not stand still, and now some housewives trust shredding to modern electric meat grinders, which have special attachments, including for cabbage. Food processor- an even more improved and modernized shredder; it deals with pieces of cabbage in a matter of minutes. And finally, the slicer is an electric vegetable cutter.
However, cabbage after shredding in this miracle technique does not turn out as beautiful as we would like, so many housewives prefer to shred cabbage more simple devices. Or the old fashioned way, with your own hands.
DIY cabbage shredder made of woodSoon it's time to pickle cabbage for the winter. Shredding cabbage by hand is long and difficult. I made my own wooden cabbage shredder. Thanks to such a simple craft, the preparation process becomes quick. Making a shredder from wood is very easy. You need to start by choosing the material. Mine is made of birch. I chose a board without knots and cracks. The board must be dry. Perhaps someone has scraps, because the size of the blanks will not be large.
Blank size
290 x 95 x 22 mm - 1 piece
140 x 95 x 22 mm - 1 piece
300 x 40 x 15 mm -2 pcs.
You can make a shredder from wood using other sizes. She doesn't have to be like that. The most important thing is to use the manufacturing principle itself. Birch crafts are always high quality and durable. My shredder is over twenty years old. Everyone should choose material based on their region.
If there are no scraps of the required size, then we prepare everything from scratch and start by jointing one side and the edge of the board. Then we pass it through a thicknesser and get right size by thickness. We make our blanks to size on a saw. Do not forget to look at the angle after each operation on the machines. We cut out the handle with a jigsaw and process it, it should be comfortable. After the jigsaw I'm on my way homemade machine brought the pen to the desired shape. All this can be done manually. 
The other end of the workpiece is slightly rounded grinding machine. It can be made the same as on the second workpiece, where the knife is located. For sawing at forty-five degrees 
The knife on my craft costs from jointer, 95 x 35 x 3 mm. The hardest part was drilling for the screws. I chose soft steel and everything worked out for me. I made a platform under the knife with a cutter and a chisel and secured it with screws. All that remains is to round off the ends of two identical pieces and you can start assembling. 
Assembling the shredder
Before assembly, we mark and drill holes. Two identical strips are screwed to a workpiece with a handle. Three screws on each side. 
Drill before screwing with a thin drill bit and this will prevent cracks. I made a regulating knife on my wood craft. You can set any thickness and chop not only cabbage and carrots when pickling, but also vegetables for various dishes. 
The knife adjustment is done as follows. On the planks and the workpiece with a knife I drilled with a 6 mm drill through hole and inserted a long bolt. To change the cutting thickness, you need to loosen the nut and set the size. You can set the lamb with frequent adjustments. 
I have made various crafts from wood; a cabbage shredder is one of my jobs that I have to use often. Making a shredder with your own hands is not so difficult, you can give a shredder and you will always be remembered kind words. In the house it is indispensable assistant every housewife.
A tasty and healthy product is sauerkraut. Practical housewives It is harvested in the fall both in rural areas and in the city. And the most labor-intensive operation here is chopping the heads of cabbage. They use sharp long knives and special shredders for this. But no manual one can compare in convenience and performance to an electric one, which you can make with your own hands by taking some parts and components from an old washing machine.
The general structure of the electric shredder is simple: an electric motor and a bearing assembly of a working disk with three knives are mounted on a metal frame welded from steel angles 20X20 mm. Rotation is transmitted to it from the engine by a belt drive. The shredder body, enclosing the working disk, has an inlet with a loading funnel and an outlet window. For ease of operation, the frame is installed on support legs welded from steel angles so that the working disk is 30° deflected from the horizontal. This makes it easier to load the funnel and feed the cabbage under the knife.
The most important part of the shredder is the working disk with three knives. It is cut from dur aluminum sheet 2 mm thick. To increase rigidity, its edge is flanged on the floor at a right angle of 10 mm. Having marked the location for installing the knives, three crescent-shaped windows are cut into the disk, and then the edges of the cut are extruded 6 mm above the plane of the disk, as shown in Figure 2. Crescent-shaped knives are installed on the resulting sites on the rivets. Best material for them - a blade from a mechanical hacksaw or a scythe blade. It is somewhat easier to make a straight knife, but a saber knife is better at work. Three duralumin corners riveted on the side of the disk opposite to the knives will help you remove the cabbage “noodles” from under the disk.
The shredder body consists of two parts: a casing of the working disk and a cover with a loading funnel. Both parts can be made either from a steel sheet 0.75 mm thick, connecting the joints by gas welding, or from the material of the washing machine body with aluminum rivets, or from an aluminum sheet with a rolling connection.
1 - loading funnel, 2 - cover, 3 - coupling bolt, 4 - working disk, 5 - frame, 6 - electric motor, 7 - drive pulley, 8 - belt, 9 - working disk casing, 10 - bearing housing, 11 - working disk shaft, 12 - bearing No. 80202.
1 - knife, 2 - disk, 3 - disk hub, 4 - angle, 5 - angle rivets, 6 - knife rivet
1 - working disk, 2 - loading funnel, 3 - adjusting support plate, 4 - knife.
The bearing assembly of the working disk is made up of: a housing, a shaft and two bearings No. 80202. A 20X20 mm angle and a vertical steel plate 3 mm thick are welded horizontally to the housing. Two holes in the bottom flange of the corner are for attaching the unit to the frame, and two in the vertical flange and one in the top plate for connecting protective casing working disk.
The parts of the V-belt reduction transmission from the engine to the working disk are borrowed from a washing machine. The belt tension is regulated by the position of the engine: the grooves of its mounting bolts on the frame allow the center-to-center distance to be changed within small limits.
Adjustment of the working element is reduced to setting a gap of 3-5 mm between the support plate of the feed funnel and the knives, and the thickness of the cut is determined by the design of the working disk: the height of the blades of the knives relative to the disk.
An electric shredder with sharp knives copes with a head of cabbage in a matter of seconds, so to avoid injury, the chopped vegetables should be fed to the rotating disk with a wooden pestle.
V. MALYSHEV, Blagoveshchensk, Amur region.
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