Southern Young Guns homemade fish scaler....instructions

Ok here ya go, I have had several people send me messages about building a scaler so I decided to take the time and explain how I did mine the best I could. Sorry if some of this is kind of vague. The pictures I have is of my test run scaler on wood in my garage, you need a aluminum or steel frame if you do yours. This is not my finished product, I do not have any pictures of it finished, i am on deployement in El-Salvador right now and cant get any. The only thing thats missing in these pics are the water fitting on the end of the copper pipe. I will explain where to put the water fitting in the directions below. Mine will do about 50 LARGE gills in about 15 mins. I cut in on, drink a beer and they are slick as eel poop when i open my drum. All the scales fall right down below the drum onto a screen that I can carry to the woods where I can toss the scales away

Materials needed:
1)Drum: I used a stainless beer keg from craigslist but it was a nightmare drilling all my holes and cutting. I would prefer wither aluminum or steel if I do it over.

2)Motor: I used a 3000 rpm belt sander motor but you can use whatever you can get ahold of

3) 30:1 gearbox: This is what will slow your motor down and make you get around the desired speed for turning the barrell. So basically it makes the 3000rpm motor only put out 30rpms per minute. My dad found one at work, I have no idea where to purchase these at

4) copper pipe 1ft longer than the length of your drum

5) pulleys with ball bearing center. (the inside dia of the ball bearing center must be the same as the outside dia of the copper pipe, i used 3/4". I got mine at Tractor Supply

6) The CORRECT fitting belt for your pulleys

The above listed are the things you MUST have, the other items needed can be substituted as needed. The basic principle of the scaler is to turn the fish, have them slide up the drum and then slide back down. The rubbing of the fish together is the main scaling action. If your fish are being thrown around like a laundy dryer your speed is too high and nothing will happen.

Step 1) get whatever drum you want and drill 5/8th holes all over the drum. drill enough holes so water can freely fall out of the drum and so there is enough holes that scales will not get backed up inside your drum. I drilled alot, the more the better. The holes also have a small part in scaling if you can somehow dimple them in so they create litte lips on the inside of the drum. This will speed up your scaling but just the fish rubbing against each other will do the trick as well.

Step 2) Cut out an opening to your drum, just get a grinder with a little cutoff wheel and cut out a square big enough to put your fish in, put a hinge and lock on the door and reattach it to the drum. Here is a pic of my drum and door.

Attachment 113799

Step 3) Find the center point on both ends of your drum, there are several ways to do this but make sure you are as close to dead center as possible. Drill out the center point to the same size as the copper pipe above, insert the copper pipe into the drum and center it, you should now have about 6" on each side sticking out. Slide the pulleys all the way down on both sides until they are in contact with the drum. Now, you need to attach the pulleys to the drum somehow, I just drilled holes through my pulleys and into through the drum and attached them with self locking hardware. Ok, now you should have your pulleys attached and CENTERED to your drum with your copper pipe running all the way through the drum. Remove your copper pipe and drill a line of 20 to 30 small holes, i drilled mine out to 1/8th". Reinstall the copper pipe with all the holes facing down. On one end of the copper pipe you need to install a water fitting so that a water hose can be hooked up to it, on the other end cap it off someway so water cannot come out the end. The small holes will act as miniature water hoses inside the drum and shoot high pressure water streams into the drum and onto the fish to help push out the scales

Step 4) You are pretty much done with the build, now you just have to use some redneck engineering and figure out how to build a stand to mount your drum so that you can get your motor to make your drum turn freely. The reason I used the pulleys with the bearing center is so that I could clamp the copper pipe down to the frame with U-bolts and the pulleys and drum will be the only thing rotating, also this way the water hose can be attached to the pipe and it will not twist as your drum rotates.


Motor and speed: Attach the motor and 30:1 gearbox together, and connect a pulley to the little shaft coming out of your gearbox. Now all that is left to do is attach the motor in the desired position on your frame. Now, put your belt around the pulley on the gearbox and arounf the pulley on the side of your drum. The belt must be tight for the drum to turn with a load of fish and not slip, before mounting your motor you should have already though of this and planned accordingly

NOTE: speed can be manipulated by putting either a larger or smaller pulley on your gearbox. This is where running your scaler with fish in it comes into play, it may take a few diff size pulleys on your gearbox before you find the right size to give you the best performance.

Attachment 113797

You are done! Just hook the water hose up to the water fitting on your pipe, throw your fish in, turn the water on, and turn on your electric motor, thats it. All of this can be modified to fit what YOU have available, this is just pretty much the basic concept. When you mount your motor to your frame that you build, I would recommend putting the motor above the drum so water doesnt damage it. The drum will not be rotating fast enough to sling water up to your motor, if it is your fish are probably flying around in the drum and not getting scaled properly. Here is one last pic of the whole setup.

Attachment 113796

Mine's a little simpler: I fillet the fish with an electric knife. I can do both sides of a bluegill in about forty seconds.

Some people like to eat bream whole......its pretty common. I was brought up eating bream this way and it's how i prefer to eat them.

I hope my post didn't seem glib or dismissive toward yours in any way - just seems like an awful lot of effort to make a fish scaler. I do know a lot of people who prefer to eat bluegill whole, though it makes me wonder if they've had fillets cooked properly. Beer-battered bluegill fillets cooked in a deep-fat fryer at the proper temp (hot) are pretty dang hard to beat.

Filleted bream are also delicious. Frying them whole you get more meat, not much but a little. We also like to hard fry our fish so that we can eat the fins like little tater chips.....that's the best part. It is a lot of work but it will last forever and for people who do like whole bream it beats scaling them by hand. Think about it, you said you do gill in 40 seconds, if you multiply that by 50 bream it comes out to be 33 mins and 20 seconds total. I can scale 50 in 15 mins and take another 10 seconds per fish to cut off the head and finger the guts out. That makes my time come to 23mins and 20 seconds. So really i save 5-10 mins depending on how motivated inam. Both are fine, I prefer my way. But that's enough math for me to last a month, lol. I took no offense to your comment at all. I love a good discussion.

not understanding something about your motor/reducer. first, it looks like a standard c-flange motor which normally comes in 1800 or 3600rpm. in my 40 years selling these worm gear type drives i never ran into a 3000 rpm motor. if that was a old motor that had been in use a long time i would suspect the second digit in your 3000 is a 6, makin it 3600. but anyway, if it is 3000 rpm motor going into that 30 to 1 gear box, which i think is a boston gear unit, your output rpm at the reducer pulley would be 100 rpm's. that would require a three to one, your drum pulley three times larger than the reducer pulley, ratio in your belt pulleys to get down to around 30 rpm's. can you remember the diameter of those two pulleys?? they look pretty close to the same size..you were pretty creative using those two idler take up pulleys to support the drum and and maintain a stationary shaft. i assume you used this setup to get water over the fish while it is turning via holes drilled in the copper tube inside the drum.

I am not exactly sure of the exact rpm of my motor, I used the only one I had lying around. I am on deployment overseas right now, i have no way of checking the exact rpm, I just know its around 3000 rpm. And yes you are correct, my on the fly math was off in my direction, a 30:1 ratio of 3000 rpm does come out to 100 rpm, not 30 like i stated, and yes the speed was reduced even more by the size pulleys i used.

Sorry, I can't remember the dai of my pulleys. When I get back to the states in June I may rewrite this thing and use more precise information. I have had 3 people pm me within the last few weeks on how to build these so i wanted to give them the information i had off the top of my head to get them started. I did all of this on my own, if you understand the basic concept of how it works there are multiple ways of building one of these.....

you are correct, the motor and worm gearbox will be pretty costly if you can't find a used one online at a surplus house. i would think it would not required anything over a 1/2 horsepower motor/reducer combo. if one will go into a 30 to 1 gearbox with a 1750 rpm motor and a two to one v-belt drive from reducer output to the drum they will get 30 rpm's at the drum if that's what required to scale them properly...

LOOKS GREAT. I ACTUALLY SCALE BREAM AND THEN FILLET . I LIKE THE SKIN .I DO ALL BREAM THIS WAY . THANKS FOR POSTING AND YOUR SERVICE .:HandsClapping

Good rig SYG

I have mine made with expanded metal (1/2") turns 13rpms.
Bet an old treadmill motop with reostat would work good, just
didn't think of it before I built mine. Chain drive beats a belt IMO.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by efdavis

I have mine made with expanded metal (1/2") turns 13rpms.
Bet an old treadmill motop with reostat would work good, just
didn't think of it before I built mine. Chain drive beats a belt IMO.

---

yeah a chain would be better, i just didnt have the stuff around for that. I went with what i had.

not real sure about a chain drive unless you have chain guard, expensive, requires lube every now and then, but the big issue is the chance of you or possible a child sticking your hand in it if not guarded. more than likely sever your fingers. belt drive much more forgiving.

That is a neat way to scale fish!!