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my $16 extruder

updated sat 28 feb 98

 

David Hendley on thu 26 feb 98

Dale, I'd like to add a refinement to your extruder:

you say
>then use a piece of 3/4" pipe (actually, just a furniture clamp
>with that size pipe--because it's there). I insert the pipe in the
>appropriate hole in the plywood, and force the plunger down. As the plunger
>goes down, I simply keep moving to lower holes.

I've seen this system used on an extruder, and the problem was
that the holes quickly got bigger and bigger with wear.

1) Get some 'angle braces' ( a flat piece of steel "L" shaped, each leg
about 2" long and 1/2" wide, with 4 screw holes) and mount one
above each hole, with the point pointing up. /or
2) Drill the holes out bigger and insert a piece of 1" steel pipe snugly into
each hole.

Thanks for the plans.
Homemade extruders are great.

David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
See David Hendley's Pottery Page at
http://www.sosis.com/hendley/david/



At 10:15 AM 2/25/98 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Dale McCleskey
>02/25/98 07:44 AM
>
>This post is only for those, like me, who are incurably cheap, and who
>enjoy the engineering challenge of building rube-goldberg machines, but
>thought I'd add it to the mix. I built myself an extruder that works quite
>well (for my limited purposes) for 16 bucks and some scrap stuff.
>
>The barrel of the extruder is a 20 inch piece of 4" PVC pipe with a glue-on
>male threaded fitting at the bottom. Then I combined a female thread
>fitting and a cap fitting for the bottom. Though I only extrude coils of
>the same size, I did it with the thought of making different shapes by
>getting different screw-on bottom pieces.I planned to use PVC for the
>plunger, but they don't manufacture anything that fits snugly inside a
>piece of 4", so what I did was used a 2' long piece of 2 1/2" PVC for the
>plunger, with a cap glued on the end, then I cut a circle out of 1" wood,
>and screwed that to the plunger.
>
>To make the whole thing work, I built a sturdy box out of scrap 2" lumber.
>The box is large enough to drop the extruder and plunger into, and will
>hold the extruder while exerting the considerable pressure required to
>extrude the clay. On the back side of the box I screwed a piece of scrap
>plywood 3' X 6". I drilled the plywood with 1" holes every few inches.
>Note, this whole thing has to be strongly built and screwed together. The
>bottom of this box assembly has a hole for the extruded clay to come out,
>but the hole is small enough (3" diameter) to provide a shoulder on which
>the extruder assembly sits. Then the whole box assembly mounts solidly to
>the wall, screwed, not nailed, to a stud.
>
>When I use it, I put my clay in the barrel of the extruder, put in the
>plunger, then use a piece of 3/4" pipe (actually, just a furniture clamp
>with that size pipe--because it's there). I insert the pipe in the
>appropriate hole in the plywood, and force the plunger down. As the plunger
>goes down, I simply keep moving to lower holes.As I said, this extruder
>works quite well, with the following aggravating problem. When I go to pull
>the plunger back out, it is stubborn and annoying. I've thought of various
>ways to cure that problem, but for the time being, this worketh.
>
>Part of the game for me is knowing I did it myself. And part of the
>motivation of this post may be to see if I could describe this in a way
>that makes any sense. Like the owl said, whoooo nose.
>
>If I were doing it again, I might shorten the original 20" barrel. I never
>extrude anywhere near that much clay, probably 10" would do, but then
>again, the longer barrel helps keep the plunger in line. I put in the male
>and female threaded pieces, so I could take it apart, and in practice I
>never do, so could save more money and just glue a cap on the end of the
>barrel. It's so cheap, you could make as many barrels and caps with
>different shapes for about $5 each. Or, you could go more conventional and
>make flat dies that fit down in the end; ain't creativity wonderful?
>
>Dale McCleskey
>Mt.Juliet Tennessee (where we still haven't seen winter, but we're all
>growing gills)
>
>

Yvonne M. Pund on fri 27 feb 98

My $5 mini extruder. I took a 1.99 caulking gun, inserted a piece of pvc
pipe with Large Washer and Screw connecter. Somewhat awkward but it
works and it is cheap.
Yvonne

On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, David Hendley wrote:

> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Dale, I'd like to add a refinement to your extruder:
>
> you say
> >then use a piece of 3/4" pipe (actually, just a furniture clamp
> >with that size pipe--because it's there). I insert the pipe in the
> >appropriate hole in the plywood, and force the plunger down. As the plunger
> >goes down, I simply keep moving to lower holes.
>
> I've seen this system used on an extruder, and the problem was
> that the holes quickly got bigger and bigger with wear.
>
> 1) Get some 'angle braces' ( a flat piece of steel "L" shaped, each leg
> about 2" long and 1/2" wide, with 4 screw holes) and mount one
> above each hole, with the point pointing up. /> or
> 2) Drill the holes out bigger and insert a piece of 1" steel pipe snugly into
> each hole.
>
> Thanks for the plans.
> Homemade extruders are great.
>
> David Hendley
> Maydelle, Texas
> See David Hendley's Pottery Page at
> http://www.sosis.com/hendley/david/
>
>
>
> At 10:15 AM 2/25/98 EST, you wrote:
> >----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> >Dale McCleskey
> >02/25/98 07:44 AM
> >
> >This post is only for those, like me, who are incurably cheap, and who
> >enjoy the engineering challenge of building rube-goldberg machines, but
> >thought I'd add it to the mix. I built myself an extruder that works quite
> >well (for my limited purposes) for 16 bucks and some scrap stuff.
> >
> >The barrel of the extruder is a 20 inch piece of 4" PVC pipe with a glue-on
> >male threaded fitting at the bottom. Then I combined a female thread
> >fitting and a cap fitting for the bottom. Though I only extrude coils of
> >the same size, I did it with the thought of making different shapes by
> >getting different screw-on bottom pieces.I planned to use PVC for the
> >plunger, but they don't manufacture anything that fits snugly inside a
> >piece of 4", so what I did was used a 2' long piece of 2 1/2" PVC for the
> >plunger, with a cap glued on the end, then I cut a circle out of 1" wood,
> >and screwed that to the plunger.
> >
> >To make the whole thing work, I built a sturdy box out of scrap 2" lumber.
> >The box is large enough to drop the extruder and plunger into, and will
> >hold the extruder while exerting the considerable pressure required to
> >extrude the clay. On the back side of the box I screwed a piece of scrap
> >plywood 3' X 6". I drilled the plywood with 1" holes every few inches.
> >Note, this whole thing has to be strongly built and screwed together. The
> >bottom of this box assembly has a hole for the extruded clay to come out,
> >but the hole is small enough (3" diameter) to provide a shoulder on which
> >the extruder assembly sits. Then the whole box assembly mounts solidly to
> >the wall, screwed, not nailed, to a stud.
> >
> >When I use it, I put my clay in the barrel of the extruder, put in the
> >plunger, then use a piece of 3/4" pipe (actually, just a furniture clamp
> >with that size pipe--because it's there). I insert the pipe in the
> >appropriate hole in the plywood, and force the plunger down. As the plunger
> >goes down, I simply keep moving to lower holes.As I said, this extruder
> >works quite well, with the following aggravating problem. When I go to pull
> >the plunger back out, it is stubborn and annoying. I've thought of various
> >ways to cure that problem, but for the time being, this worketh.
> >
> >Part of the game for me is knowing I did it myself. And part of the
> >motivation of this post may be to see if I could describe this in a way
> >that makes any sense. Like the owl said, whoooo nose.
> >
> >If I were doing it again, I might shorten the original 20" barrel. I never
> >extrude anywhere near that much clay, probably 10" would do, but then
> >again, the longer barrel helps keep the plunger in line. I put in the male
> >and female threaded pieces, so I could take it apart, and in practice I
> >never do, so could save more money and just glue a cap on the end of the
> >barrel. It's so cheap, you could make as many barrels and caps with
> >different shapes for about $5 each. Or, you could go more conventional and
> >make flat dies that fit down in the end; ain't creativity wonderful?
> >
> >Dale McCleskey
> >Mt.Juliet Tennessee (where we still haven't seen winter, but we're all
> >growing gills)
> >
> >
>