> Allen; I just read your post to the bee-list and am interested in > the details for motorizing a hand crank extractor using a fan or > other small motor. I have a small, four frame Dadant stainless hand > crank that, as I get older would like to motorize. Your help would > be appreciated. Just remove the mechanism from the top of the centre shaft, and find an 'A' belt pulley to fit. About 6 inche diameter is right as I recall. Then arrange to hang a 1/4 horse two speed furnace fan motor on one side so the the shaft is also vertical and poking up enough so that a pulley placed on the shaft will line up with the first pulley. The smallest pulley available at a hardware store will be appropriate. If you can rig a mount that allows some adjustment towards and away from the centre shaft to allow for belt variations or pulley changes, so much the better. A simple L shaped piece of 3/16 steel with slots in it works well. Then find a belt that fits between the two pulleys, and then wire a switch that permits two speed operation. The RPM selection of the motor is usually 1140 and 1725. The RPMs of the (two speed) extractor will be P1 / P2 X Ms. Where P1 and P2 are the pulley diameters and Ms is the motor RPM at the moment. A 60 inch radial runs about 250 RPM, so for a tangential type, you would likely want a target top speed ofsomewhere in the range of D60 / Dyours X 250 where D60 is the speed of the large machine and Dyours is the diameter of your little machine measured across the baskets, not the tank. I extracted 125 hives one year in a converted school bus with such a machine and did not find it wanting. Regards Allen W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper VE6CFK Rural Route One, Swalwell, Alberta Canada T0M 1Y0 Honey. Bees, Art, & Futures <http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka>