DIY Mini Taffy Pulling Machine - V2

thingiverse

After always wanting my own Taffy Machine I finally decided that if I really wanted one I was going to have to make it myself. In 2012 I managed to scrape together enough time, money, and determination, resulting in a small DIY Taffy Machine using modified plans from Make Magazine, Laser-cut gears designed in Inkscape, and an old plastic soap bucket. On my blog, I nicknamed it the "Windfresh 200 Taffy Machine" because it was a Windfresh brand soap bucket - not all that creative, I admit, but honestly, I didn't know what to call it. The original machine worked fine, and many people were impressed (while others hoped to have help building their own), but I always felt annoyed by the big gears posing a pinching hazard on the outside and being hard to obtain. Now in 2016, I've decided to fix these issues in Version 2, publishing easy design files for others to make. With my small 3D printer, this is much easier than before. Sorry, the only photos I currently have of this machine actually making taffy are old ones, but hopefully, they're enough to convince you that it works. Update Aug-1-18: My new internal gears broke again; I need to try extruding them longer to take more stress. Old Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cliAcFX6wxk New Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCdn1Dl-zLA Honestly, any soap bucket or hard plastic trash can would work. I decided on a simpler approach because sometimes I'm lazy and won't finish projects if I can't get parts or things made quickly. The soap bucket helped despite not being perfectly square. My motto for the original was that it didn't need to be perfect as long as it was good enough, and it worked. Version 2 is only a minor tweaking of the original, mainly in the four scaled gears of my original 6" gear designed in Inkscape. But yes, even this version could be improved upon, and I do look forward to seeing what improvements the OpenSource and Maker communities make with it! Please let me know how your versions turn out! On my way up the canyon to Estes Park, Colorado, there's a small candy store called "Sunny Jim's Candies". When I was young, I always wanted to stop there for some of what I called "Licorice Taffy" - basically a black gooey blob with Licorice flavor. Now this store is sadly completely sugar-free, which is awful. Therefore, realizing that a Taffy Machine isn't complete without a good Saltwater Taffy Recipe, I've included a free PDF copy of the original Sunny Jim's Cookbook published by Mrs. Sunny Jim Walters (Edna Walters)! Note: If you don't have Solidworks, try checking out the free program eDrawings that can open and view 3D solidworks files. Special thanks to Inkscape, Ubuntu Linux, Solidworks, BigBlueSaw.com, Aleph Objects (aka. the Lulzbot guys), bedtime4bonzos, the original RepRap project, and Make Magazine.