- Jun 16, 2012
- 19
- 12
- 86
To answer the original question about whether these Whizbangers actually work, I'll say a huge Yes! they do. In spades. Here's my input from just building one.
First, I'd suggest you buy the book from planet whizbang, and save the $20 somewhere else. I just finished ours, and the book is worth it. No false starts, and no wasted materials. Plus, it is a fun book, and the guy who wrote it deserves the little bit of profit he gets from selling books. The plans are good, and well laid out step-by-step.
Don't waste your money buying a brand new motor. You're only going to use this machine once or twice a year, and then just for a few minutes, really. Why buy a brand new motor to have it set around idle almost all the time? Get a used motor from a pawn shop/flea market/garage sale. The motor specs are not critical. Get a 1750 rpm motor. Ten or twenty bucks should buy a used old motor. Find an old dryer motor if you're in a farming area. Otherwise, they're called TEFC motors. Any motor will work, though. Just be sure to keep it dry. The bucket method he shows works great. Kimball says he originally used a 1/2 hp motor. That's probably plenty big given how much this thing is geared down by the belting system.
By the way, if you don't want to buy the book, Kimball pretty much lays it all out in his website for you to see for free. If you can build, you can 'reverse engineer' from his free articles and pictures. If you're like me, after I examined his website, I knew the plan book would be worth it. It is.
I made our feather plate out of a disc of plastic I cut from a used plastic drum. Drilled it for the fingers, then laminated it to a piece of 3/4 inch plywood for strength. Counter sunk holes into the plywood for the butt end of the fingers to make it all nice and smooth. Coated the plywood with epoxy (you could use fiberglass polyester from Walmart if you don't have access to epoxy). This makes it super waterproof. Not really needed, because the disc is not wet for more than a few seconds per bird. Used CDX plywood.
Made my own shaft.
So, bought bearings on ebay, bought fingers on ebay (I used 150 which is a lot, but I had them so I worked them in....) Bought the big pulley at a farm supply store as a 'second' for $19. All in all, I think I have about $200 in it. Used lumber, scrounged everything else. Whatever it cost, it is well worth it. Plucked our first chicken in about 15 seconds - CLEAN!
Wife had to work the next day. I finished dressing 7 birds all by myself. Started killing the first bird at a little after 9:00 in the morning. By 12:30 the birds were in the fridge, everything was washed and cleaned up, and I was sitting in my comfy chair having lunch. Can't say enough about this machine! Definitely makes raising meat birds a pleasure to look forward to, instead of dreading the picking. As a boy, I picked many chickens by hand! I think this machine will pretty much last forever. Not really much to wear out.
First, I'd suggest you buy the book from planet whizbang, and save the $20 somewhere else. I just finished ours, and the book is worth it. No false starts, and no wasted materials. Plus, it is a fun book, and the guy who wrote it deserves the little bit of profit he gets from selling books. The plans are good, and well laid out step-by-step.
Don't waste your money buying a brand new motor. You're only going to use this machine once or twice a year, and then just for a few minutes, really. Why buy a brand new motor to have it set around idle almost all the time? Get a used motor from a pawn shop/flea market/garage sale. The motor specs are not critical. Get a 1750 rpm motor. Ten or twenty bucks should buy a used old motor. Find an old dryer motor if you're in a farming area. Otherwise, they're called TEFC motors. Any motor will work, though. Just be sure to keep it dry. The bucket method he shows works great. Kimball says he originally used a 1/2 hp motor. That's probably plenty big given how much this thing is geared down by the belting system.
By the way, if you don't want to buy the book, Kimball pretty much lays it all out in his website for you to see for free. If you can build, you can 'reverse engineer' from his free articles and pictures. If you're like me, after I examined his website, I knew the plan book would be worth it. It is.
I made our feather plate out of a disc of plastic I cut from a used plastic drum. Drilled it for the fingers, then laminated it to a piece of 3/4 inch plywood for strength. Counter sunk holes into the plywood for the butt end of the fingers to make it all nice and smooth. Coated the plywood with epoxy (you could use fiberglass polyester from Walmart if you don't have access to epoxy). This makes it super waterproof. Not really needed, because the disc is not wet for more than a few seconds per bird. Used CDX plywood.
Made my own shaft.
So, bought bearings on ebay, bought fingers on ebay (I used 150 which is a lot, but I had them so I worked them in....) Bought the big pulley at a farm supply store as a 'second' for $19. All in all, I think I have about $200 in it. Used lumber, scrounged everything else. Whatever it cost, it is well worth it. Plucked our first chicken in about 15 seconds - CLEAN!
Wife had to work the next day. I finished dressing 7 birds all by myself. Started killing the first bird at a little after 9:00 in the morning. By 12:30 the birds were in the fridge, everything was washed and cleaned up, and I was sitting in my comfy chair having lunch. Can't say enough about this machine! Definitely makes raising meat birds a pleasure to look forward to, instead of dreading the picking. As a boy, I picked many chickens by hand! I think this machine will pretty much last forever. Not really much to wear out.
