Ice Shaver Storeage Box

Stuart Ablett

Member
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15,917
Location
Tokyo Japan
Here in the Summer, at the Bon Odori festival, one of the more popular booths is the Shaved Ice, booth, I guess you might call it snow cones? Well the local community guys rent the machine that shaves the ice, they rent two of them, they cost about $50 each for the weekend not huge money, but still, it does cost. This local festival is put on as a money making event for the local community association. We run it ourselves and it is all staffed by neighbourhood people as volunteers. We sell beer at the festival, basically at cost, it is a lot of work and a real pain in the back, but hey community spirit and all that..... :rolleyes:

As I'm one of about three guys who help out who is under 65 years old, I'm usually tasked with loading and unloading the heavy stuff from the trucks, not a problem, I don't mind. This year, when we were putting stuff away, one of the guys grabbed a grubby old cardboard box and said "We should just toss this thing, it is taking up space..." the others agreed but I'm always curious, and I said "Toss what...?" it turns out they bought a shaved ice machine 15 or so years ago and it stopped working, that is why they rent the other machines. Well at first blush it looked all there so I said, "What's wrong with it...?" no one knew, they just knew it did not work.

Well dang it, that is not right, let's see what's wrong with it FIRST then if it is cooked, yeah, toss it.

I took it home, turned it on and it seemed to work ??? I called one of the guys that works the shaved ice booth and said "What is wrong with this unit exactly...?" he told me that it had been at least five years, but he thought that when you try to shave the ice, the machine stalls and after a few minutes it starts to smoke and then the breaker trips.... :eek:

I took it apart, the problem....?

The belt was dry and cracked and it was loose....

About $4.80 later I had a new belt. I then checked the machine over, and aside from it being a bit grungy from sitting in a box for 5; years in a storehouse, it was fine :thumb: The blade was duller than a butter knife that was used for scraping glue off concrete...... :doh:

I sharpened up the blade REAL sharp, and I adjusted it, I also shined up the brass plate that the ice spins on as it is being shaved, new belt and a fresh chunk of ice, and boy we were making snow cones :thumb:

It was then suggested that I box it back up in the crappy old cardboard box...... :(

Ah NO, I don't think so.... ;) :D

I made a new box for it.....

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The basic box

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The box and the ice shaver on the base, you get the idea.

The machine will be placed on the base and then the box will be placed over the machine and secured to the base.

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Another shot

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Here you can see the base with the clamp that holds the machine to the base and the side pieces that the knobs go through to secure the base to the box top.

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Here it is assembled. I put the handles on the box, and not too high up either. Most of the guys, like I said, are older gents and lifting heavy stuff is not something they do a lot. I made the handles generous so that one guy on each side can lift. I can easily carry the whole deal myself, it is not THAT heavy, but I'm a lot younger and larger than most of the other guys.

I'll put a few coats of some WB urethane on it, and call it good.

This will be the last project out of the Dungeon for a while until I heal up from my surgery next Wednesday.

Oh, I'm also going to put some rubber feet on it, as I don't think sitting on cold damp concrete in the store house for 11 months and 28 days a year can be good for it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the ice shaver that they wanted to throw out, would cost about $1300 to replace :doh:

This on the heels of a really big screw up on the head of the local community association, we also do "Yakkitori" basically chicken chunks roasted on a stick. We have two large Yakkitori roasting machines, they are large stainless steel deals with what is essentially two radiant heaters fueled by LPG that sit in the top of the unit. The racks of yakkitori are roasted below it. When we are busy, they crank out a LOT of Yakkitori and it is a good money maker. Last year, on one of the machines, one of the two burners would often not stay lit, this was a big problem. The head of the group decided, by himself, without consulting anyone else, to just buy one new machine, he made an "Executive" decision. :rofl:

Yes, he paid list price and yes that price was STOOPID expensive, how much you ask....?

$2500 or just short of that :eek::eek::eek::eek::doh:

Now the first I heard of this was when we were cleaning up after the weekend festival, we were loading stuff and I noticed the shiny new yakkitori machine, and they were going to toss the old one, that did not work right. I again said.... "What is wrong with it...?" they told me that one of the two burners would go out.... I said.... "Did you clean the jets...?"
They all looked at me like I was speaking Greek or something. Really people, these are VERY simple machine :)

Took the offending burner out, removed the one cover from where the jet is located, and took it out, I could see it was covered in carbon and stuff. One good puff of air from the lungs and it was clean.... and it worked just fine...... :p

I tell you, the community association leader guy now HATES my guts :(:rolleyes::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Stupid eh?
 
Nice save on the shaver. Stupid, yes in his part for buying a new cooker.

We also have a community thing here. Be beg, borrow, steal or build before we buy something.
 
What Sno-Cone? I don't see any sno-cones!?:rofl:

Why do they hate you? Now they can make and sell double the Yakkitori, right?:rolleyes:

One the one hand it is comforting to know that the disease of "just toss it" is not solely a north-american thing. On the other hand, it is still sad how few people in the world seem to have any ability or interest in just fixing something instead of tossing it.
 
Nice box and good job on fixing rather than tossing.

As a side note, the weber stephens newsletter last week had a recipe for Yakatori, so We'll be having yakatori and tempura veggies tomorrow night...
 
Way to go on the rescue Stu. :thumb::thumb::thumb:

There is a happy and sad side to your story. The happy one is the good spirit people doing a community thing and you getting involved as well as being mr fix it.

The real sad part is the bit Art mentions. People have been brainwashed into being consumers and throw away is the first thought. I feel like we are all in the minority when we can fix something.

Thing that you were lucky with was getting a part like the belt. What i have seen here with the few appliance repairs i have taken on is that parts get priced to deter you from fixing it. Deliberate marketing strategy.

Last week i gave my 8 year old BBQ its pre winter spring clean.

To do this i strip it completely scrub the inside down with steel brush and check out the burner etc.

Well i thought of putting new lighter in so off to the HD for a piezo striker.

These things are junk because its is so value engineered when the get moisture in they pooched. Anyhow HD has this new electronic lighter. But they want $28 Canadian for it. I said nope thats an awful lot of matches or gas lighters from the dollar store.

Just for fun looked up on Amazon the same thing US. $16. and the local Home Hardware, boy they made home depot look cheap.

Now i know why my neighbor has been through 2 BBQs in the last couple of years and i still have mine from 8 years ago.

Just like the auto industry to me this is a fundamentally unsustainable kind of system. I know we all say its being going on forever but there is a net cost to the whole planet for it.
 
Thanks guys!

Ted, I could have done that, and it did cross my mind :rolleyes:
Yes, I could have made money, but that is not just me:eek:, I can fix it and we can continue to use it, and this saves the local association a ton of money, that held more reward for me.

Don the correct way to spell it is...

焼鳥 or やきとり

If your computer does not read Japanese then here....

yakitori2.jpgyakitori1.jpg

I guess my rominazation of the word is not correct, only one "K" I guess :huh:

Like Yakitori but I have seen it written Yakkitori, might be a regional thing:dunno:
 
I love chicken on a stick, from all cultures....

Been on a real persian kick with chicken kabobs marinated in a yogurt/onion/minty/salty sauce.

Yakitori looks like a Japanese version. Can't wait till tomorrow night....
 
You got it right Don, I shouldn't have limited myself!

To get back on track though, what I really like is the way the the attachment mechanism works to attach the bottom of the box to the top. Pretty cool... Simple, Secure, and looks good... :thumb:
 
It's amazing how people are just willing to throw stuff away. When we moved to Texas thats how we furnished our apartment down here along with new dishes, phones, a floor model television and a ton of christmas lights,decorations and a tree.

With the addition of the storage box you made Stu they should get another 15 years service out of it.:thumb:
 
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