DIY Grain Mill knurled steel?

[Walrus81]

I'm slowly coming round to the idea of milling hrain myself.

Looking at the various mills thst you can buy got me thjnking surely it would not be too difficult to make a mill.

My plan is to use caged ball bearings to hold the rollers, which sit inside a metal housing.

The pitch between the rollers can be adjusted by screws.

Anyway these are just ideas at the moment.

I've just hit a stumbling block though. Where to get the roller!

I can get the steel via a well know auction site. However anyone know someone in Kent who would be able to knurl the stock for me?

Or any suggestions on where to buy it from?

Or perhaps should I just bite the bullet amd buy one?

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Last time I checked, the entry level roller mills were not that expensive.

Do you have a burning desire to build a mill? Not seeing how DIY is going to save you a lot of money.

Milling can be a faff, and it causes me a lot of grief on my brew days, my cordless struggled with the crush more times than not meaning I had to hand crush, and use a gap setting larger than I would like. New corded drill should fix all that.

But having variability or extra hours on my brew day fixing a mill is not something I would wish on anyones hobby.

[Walrus81]

Just had look, didn't realise how reasonbly a mill is.

So I will just get a ready made one.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Most of the DIY mill projects focus on getting a base mill, and building it into a mill station - motorised, malt hopper, grist collector.

More carpentry than metalwork tbh

[Jocky]

I’ve seen someone grind the rollers on a pasta rolling machine to create a grain mill, but again it seemed like a lot of work given the availability of grain mills.

[Kev888]

Yes the rollers are the main stumbling block, to come in much cheaper or better than buying ready-made. They can't just be cylinders of metal, a reduced shaft or axle is needed on the ends of at least one (preferably both) to enable the use of smaller bearings (or else the rollers can't be brought together closely enough).

Without access to a lathe then people do all kinds of odd things, like cast them from concrete, which generally turn out somewhat crudely. It will be interesting to see if anyone has a good suggestion. FWIW I once considered a stone rolling pin, but the central hole wasn't very accurately centred so it would have taken more bodging.