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how to make an auger

Auger flighting is rolled in a specialized machine, which gives a certain 'hole size' down the axis. So you specify what the shaft size will be when you order a piece. Just slide a piece of shafting inside and weld it on, with a bead every few inches. Symmetry of welding is important so that the shaft stays as straight as possible.
 
well, i want to make a 100 bushel bin for storage, it begins to be a problem to load the corn into a bin that is eight feet tall.

if i have to buy an auger, i'd rather purchase a vac system and load it that way, it'd be slower...but hey, i've got time.

got the second stove installed today...not so sure about it, i've got it on it's lowest setting and it's still sweating us out of the room :-/

Seems like such a waste to open a window...need to cut a hole in the floor and pump some of that heat into the garage


-Jacob
 
How about checking out some places that sell used machinery. You might also checkout a farm machinery dealer to see if they have an old grain elevating auger kicking around for cheep. Also a lot of old farmers never threw anything away, but would "store" a lot of old junk out behind the barn. You might find something there.
 
It might be worth doing a web search for "screw conveyors" to see what is available and to see the different configurations that are available. There is a lot to consider when building an inclined or vertical screw conveyor. Neither are cheap and they do require maintenance. How you feed and discharge the conveyor and what you are conveying play a big role in what type of equipment you should use.

To answer your specific question, the flite sections are welded together and then welded to a hollow center tube. Depending on what you are conveying and the configuration used will determine how you weld it.


Joe
 
I would also try to find a used one. Any abandoned silos around?

A friend of mine used to make his own augers. He had a specialized machine that formed the flat bar into the flighting. He may of mentioned that they do it hot with lots of tonnage also.

Les
 
Here is a piece of dos software if you want to build it yourself..

"One way to make an auger is to cut annular shaped (washer-shaped) pieces from flat stock, slit them along a radius, then stretch them out and weld them to a circular shaft. Calculating the size of the annular pieces needed to yield a desired finished auger size is slightly tricky. This program will do the work for you."

http://www.myvirtualnetwork.com/mklotz/fckeditor/UserFiles/File/helix.zip

Lots of other usefull files:

http://www.myvirtualnetwork.com/mklotz/
 
Depending on where you live, an old coal furnace with stoker feed might be available. If so, it would have the auger, its housing and drive train, and even a bin. Lots of fence posts and utility poles are set in auger-drilled holes.

Remember...one good way to flatten things is to stir a bin half full of grain until there is lots of dust in the air, then add fire...

A family of corn snakes will help control rodents also...

Charles
 
Jacob, take a look at your local TSC store or catalogue,farm auctions, ect. the farmers call them grain augers. A 4" will need a 1/2 hp 1725 capacitor start motor. you might also look for an old combine at a equipment dealer that they are scrapping out, they have many augers as well as what they call a grain "legg" or grain elevator,( a chain with rubber paddels,that is enclosed in a square,or rectangular sheetmetal tube). the advatage to the elevator is it will lift the grain on a steeper angle than an auger, requiring less room. If you still want to make your own there are several companies that sell pre-made flighting for augers, just do a yahoo search "auger flighting" Shawn
 
If you don't mind a little damage to the kernals, you can pump corn with the right impeller. You can't pump a solid stream but you can use the impeller to give the kernal velocity to fly under its inertia up a duct and into the hopper. There's also soft rubber pinch wheels.
 
Hey Snowman,
Are you burning corn? If so would you care to elaborate on your set up.
I am in sotheren WI, lots of corn around here.
A good way to unload a hopper is with a flying dutchman and a reverse auger at the base that kicks the stuff up and drops into a boot auger to transfer.
mac,,,,,,,,,
 
Am burning corn.

Have two Envirotec's that I purchased off a member of this forum. Thus far I'm still in the novelty stage. I can tell you this, we got last months gas bill and it was $600 dollars (without the burners running). That is a 1200 square foot house, 600 square foot loft and a 900 square foot garage (intermitantly). I now have the burners in the garage and the loft. The burner in the loft is pretty tricky...it's sweating us out on the lowest setting.

I'll take pictures later (once I figure out how to use the new digital camera).

What is important is not "lots of corn around here", but being able to get "lots of corn home". Right now, I'm trying to find a gravity wagon that I can buy to move my corn home
Lack of a real pickup sucks....a Ford Ranger is NOT a pickup truck.

-Jacob
 
Snowman:
See if the farmer you buy the corn from will deliver it and have him bring his grain auger with him.

Around here there are several guys with single axle trucks with grain boxes that have hydraulic lift on the box. They also run a hydraulic driven grain or coal auger off the same system.

You could probably trade some corn for machine work.

Good luck

Hal
 
A company called GSI makes a auger line called "Flex Flow". It is a spiral auger with no pipe inside. It will bend around corners, and is ran inside of plastic pipe. I believe they have sizes of 2", 3", and 4". The 4" bends use about a 6' radius, the smaller ones will bend sharper. They look slightly unusual, but you won't wear one out in your lifetime. You could pipe the corn directly into the furnace in your shop.

If you want to make your own rigid auger, there is a company called Replacement Flighting Supply in Aurora, NE 888.728.0969 that makes and sells just the flighting in UPSable lengths. You specify what size of center tube you will be welding it on. Several pieces can be threaded together for easy shipping.
 
Then there's the old conveyor bucket system. Quiet, efficient system for straight up conveying. Wooden box piping with the flat belt conveyor and little buckets attached. Most fun if you put in glass windows to view, and removable panels with the little rotating screen door clips....

I have an old derelict feed mill. Like Forrest mentioned, when it was running, they conveyed a lot of bulk grain by essentially vaccuuming it up out of trucks and rail cars, and blowing it through the impellor to bins. Inside the mill, the bucket conveyors moved a lot of it for metering and feed mixing.

smt
 
A couple of things:

1) A life time ago I sold wire to one of the guys that make the coreless auger. Making that at home would be very difficult without spending a lot of money for the sent up. I saw it done cold with heavy duty equipment.

2) Looking at some 2" diameter old auger bits I have, they seem like they were hot twisted from flat stock - there is no core. You could twist an 8' auger from 3/16" mill edge flats.
 








 
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