Wizbang Chicken Plucker

I'm interested as well!

I built mine.  The motor was the most expensive part as I could not find one used.  I dropped $175 for it at TSC.  It was another $300 or so in parts (several I bought from Herrick Kimball).  It makes raising my own meaties worthwhile.  Plucking my hand stinks and the Whizbang is an affordable option. 

BTW - it's completely overbuilt and you could get away with less hardware.  Also consider putting the wheels and handle on the motor side.

It's definitely worth it.  I do very few birds compared to many people here, and when I originally built mine, I was only doing about 50 birds a year.  Even at that, it's WELL worth it to me.  They work great and mine cost about $300 to build.  I got my motor from Harbor Freight.  It was about half the cost of TSC's farm duty motor- it isn't sealed, but I think I paid about $75 bucks for it.  I have it covered with a bucket and make an effort not to spray water onto the motor.  It does just fine, and I've plucked a ton of birds on it.

For smaller operations try the "Poor Mans" chicken plucker. Simple to build for less than $10.
Heres a link to a video on youtube with one in operation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtKIOlrJskk
Doesn't show the plucker real well but if anyone is interested message me and I'll send pictures of mine.

How difficult was it to make?

VERY simple to make.
Materials consist of a 4in PVC cap, an 8 inch X 3/8 carriage bolt with nut and flat/lock washers, and 2 RUBBER bungee's.  Have to rubber bungee's as you are going to cut them for the plucking fingers.

Check out these youtube video's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC051HphyvY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9NYdeDrHWU

Some guy built basically a whizbang out of an old washer.  I am currently building one for myself.  I'm about half way done I need to buy some fingers and install them.  I will warn you though if you want to go this route you will need to have a pretty good mechanical background.  You will need to do some rewiring, cutting and grinding and welding.  The upside is I got the washer for free off Craigs list and will spend about $50 on fingers.  The only other things I will need I have laying around here - a couple of switches and some hose.

I also looked on line at some commercial plucker's and noticed that they had more fingers on the base plate (spinning part) and less on the tub.  So I will do the same to mine.  It seems the fingers on the side more or less just turn the bird so the bottom plate can do the work.

So for about 50 bucks I will hopefully have a nice chicken plucker - Which will come in handy this spring when I get some meat birds.

I don't know if I'd change the amount of plucker fingers- while it seems true that the fingers on the featherplate do a lot of the work, the bird needs to be able to get down in between them a little bit, and if they are too close, it may not happen as well.  The featherplate as designed works perfectly- I can't imagine a need to improve it to do anything more than pluck two birds completely bare in 15 seconds!  I'd be afraid you'd be making it less efficient, but then again, it might work great.