Slat mill

Tri-Star aluminum two piece wheels Part #'s 1183 and 1184.

Tons of conveyor belt on Ebay..
Good luck. I just finished my second one. I'm getting about 8 1/2 to 9 turns per hand pull. 8" main wheels, 55mm roller blade wheels for the roller bed. So far I'm happy with it.

EWO

 

http://www.ebay.com/usr/bullseyeindustrialsales?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

Conveyor belt

 

Not necessarily the bigger the better, but the bigger the wheel the longer the belt. The math has to be right.

axle to axle length multiplied by two plus wheel diameter times 3.14 divided by 2.

mine is 55 inches axle to axle with 8 inch main wheels.

55 X 2 = 110 plus 8 X 3.14 =25.12 divided by 2 = 12.56.

110 + 12.5 = belt length for an 8" wheel.

shorter and the slats will not come off the the main wheel and will start to wrap (axle wrap is the belt using more than 1/2 of the wheel at a time).

longer and it get a lot of wobble at the bottom and does not come back up on the rear main wheel smoothly.

S

 

And I lied.

Don't divide the 25.12 by 2. I was thinking about two main wheels and added that last step.

It is the axle length times two plus the 8 inch wheel times 3.14 (pi).

My belt is 135 inches long. Then divide the width of the slats plus the gaps to get as close to the number as possible.

I have packed so much useless shit in my brain over the years it is hard to pull out anything of value.

S

 

I'm dumb so carpet mills are the way to go. You can miss by an 1/8th inch here and there and still get a really workable mill.

With a slat mill if you miss by an 1/8th inch and you teach yourself a brand new series of curse words.

If you have a 'curse jar' at 25 cent per infraction. Building a slat mill will better than anyone's 401K or pension plan.

I tell everyone I have built three. In reality I built the same one three times until it got to be a workable mill.

And a 25 cent per, I'd be on easy street right now, as it was a constant flurry of F bombs.

S

 

True. The slat dip/slat rock is when the lead edge of the slat drops because it does not make it to the next wheel. I used a 55mm roller blade wheel with a 2 1/4" slat. Pretty much as the lead edge comes off one roller it makes it to the next wheel before it can dip.

True. Either mill can be difficult to build but the carpet mill is a bit easier, requires much less skill and costs only a fraction of the slat mill in material costs.

Either mill can be used for a desired effect and that depends on the free-ness of the mill. The best ones (for me) are the modern day carpet mills that should be more appropriately called belt mills. I cut my teeth on the old carpet mills that had a heavy jute backed shag like carpet, moving on sanded plywood sliding over stationery PVC pipe. The dog looked like he was pulling a boat when on those mills. It was a lugging motion more so than a running motion.

Over the years these mills were upgraded and improved upon until now they turn very comparable to a lot of the slat mills out there. The carpet mill I build can get two-three rotations per hand pull. Much different than what I grew up on.

The most important thing to remember when conditioning, using whatever mill or whatever tool, the feed pan has to match the work plan and the work plan has to match the feed pan. The next most important thing is the order of exercises to get to a desired effect.

If you want a muscled up, mass packed dog then do the heavy anaerobic work after a short warmup. He will be fueled to build mass if he does mass type work. If the lean and fit, strong, endurance athlete is the desired effect, do the aerobic work first and get the dog tired, not done, just tired, then use the anaerobic work for strength. Using only shorter intervals.

Both can make a beautiful dog.

S

 

When I was in boot camp my drill instructor use to say, "There are no such things as stupid questions. Just stupid people who ask questions".

I train a lot of people in the plants I work at and that is what I always say, No such thing, or the only dumb question is the one that does not get asked and something dumb happens.

The whole time my mouth is moving my brain is thinking of the boot camp scenario.

S