"Poor Man's" Concrete Mixer

"Poor Man's" Concrete Mixer MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 30-2-25 Frank Krakow, New Albany, Ind., recently sent FARM SHOW photos of what he calls a "poor man's" hand-cranked concrete mixer that he built out of an old 10-gal. plastic barrel. "I use it to do a variety of small jobs around our farm. It doesn't cost anything to operate and cost almost nothing to build," says the 82-year-old Krakow. The mixer mounts at an angle on a wood frame made from 2 by 4's and plywood. It can be easily towed around by a small tractor. He bolted two lengths of angle iron to the inside of the plastic barrel and then used brass bolts to attach aluminum sheet metal off a refrigerator on to the top of the barrel in a cone shape. A hand crank attaches to a long bolt that runs through the center of the barrel. The bolt runs through an 8-in. dia. steel plate that bolts to the base of the barrel. The plate has bearings mounted inside it, so the barrel turns freely when the crank is turned. "Once it's mixed together I use a long handle on the side to pivot it up to dump into a form or a wheelbarrow," says Krakow. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Frank Krakow, 4205 Saint Joseph Rd., New Albany, Ind. 47150 (ph 812 944-0917).

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