Can crusher

This weekend me and my friend Kim where trying to clean up a little at our bar. Well, about 100 cans of beer where cluttering the storage room and we usually crush them by simply place them on the floor and stomp them flat. For a while now we have been thinking about building some kind of crusher device. As Kim wanted to be able to get some chums to work when ever he is displeased with them we went for a manual crusher. I wanted a pneumatic ram to crush them but as we are a bit low on cash and don’t have any pneumatic equipment it would have to do.

The device is quite simple really, there are a box that serves as a crushing chamber and feeder with room for 5 cans. The two levers makes it easy to crush a can. The hole in the side and the block of wood inside are just a way to secure it to the table.

The feeder is fully loaded and ready for action. All you have to do at this point is pushing the levers apart and together until the feeder is empty.

Here is the last can in a load before and after.

The force needed for this result is not that great. I don’t think a eight year old could do it but for any normal strength adult it is easy. One thing I didn’t take a picture of is the exit port. In the “after” picture above you will have to imagine a hole just a little bit larger than the crushed can. When the ram moves back and lets go of the can it will fall out in the bottom.