Ugliest Invention of the Day

So finally today one of my machine designs has moved from concept to reality. When I got my bag of oats to plant it became apparent that i would need to come up with a way to remove the hulls. While contemplating the task I saw my noodle maker machine sitting on a counter top. Could it be that easy? No, of course not. After a bit of contemplation and a discussion with a brewer friend, who regularly has grain processed, the rollers on a rolling mill need to be textured. At an auction a few weeks later I spotted another pasta maker. I built a hopper from scrap sheet metal scrounged from an old computer. Today I finally installed the new drive belt on my century-old lathe. This was the first time I got to do more than a few minutes worth of work on it. Unfortunately the slowest speed is still really fast, not so good when you're trying to do knurling work. Blah blah blah, boring to anyone who is not a machinist. Bottom line is, I managed to texture the rollers. A handful of screws, a scrap of laminate flooring and part of a small crate assembled together to make my rolling mill.

I have a philosophy - ugly but effective is still effective. The mill won't win any beauty contests but it does the job. Now if I can just build a device to separate the hulls from the oats...