Stirring made easy

[garage nut]

Needed to mix fairly large quantities of sugar and initially it was ok to use a large spoon.

i have a commercially bought paint stirrer but, 1) it is covered in lots of layers of paint 2) I needed something "soft" that would not scratch or damage the inside of the container and 3) sometimes I would need it to be used in a 25L drum with a small screw on cap.

This is the solution I cam up with.



It is a piece of 20mm Ali rod with holes drilled to accept 8mm pneumatic tubing. TIP...to get the tubing through the holes keep your tubing as one piece and cut the end a taper longer than the diameter of the ali tube. Feed this end through the hole and pull the tube till the desired length and only then cut it. Do this 3 times.

Then I drilled a 6mm hole through the center for the shaft. TIP...it has to be 6mm so it can act as the LOCK for the tubes. Initially the idea was to use threaded rod and would use a nut at the top and bottom of the ali piece to prevent it from spinning, but the local hardware store had no SS rod and being food I am working with I did not want to use galvanized rod.



This works perfectly as the tubes are stiff enough to create a good enough stir that I am inducing aeration at the same time and soft enough to be bent to go through the 25l drum cap and be pulled back out again. Also soft enough not to scratch the insides of the containers.