Get Your...

cotton-pickin', finger-lickin', chicken-plucker's outta there!

Did your mom ever say that?  Mine did.  I do.  It must be said really fast.  Of course, my kids have no idea what I'm saying...

But this brings me to my dilemma.

I have 35-40 Meat Mutants, panting out there in the heat, eating more $$ per day than my children manage, and I think they'd do far better relaxing in a VERY cool place.  Like, the freezer in my basement.

Tomorrow is our 9-year anniversary!

Put those together, and what do you get?  "Honey, for our anniversary would you please build me a chicken plucker?"  (I know, I wanted it for Mother's Day, but that's come and gone.)  I'm sure husbands all over America are sick and tired of hearing that phrase.  Or not.  Yes, I'm weird.

We've been slowly working towards it, gathering parts and materials, spending lotsa money on said parts and materials, and we're getting down to the wire here.

The only question mark (haha, yeah right) is "at what RPM does the pluckerplate need to spin?"  We don't have the official plan book (long story), and really don't have time to order one at this point.  Since we're also using a slightly different motor than is called for, and slightly different size of drive pulley, we're not sure what size the slave pulley needs to be!

I'm sure this is all making perfect sense.

I have an algebraic-looking formula scratched down here on my scrap paper (I think it's the inside of an organic cookie box - what I actually got for Mother's Day), and not enough information to get my answer (remember when we always thought we'd "never use this stuff in real life"?).  I have "x" and "a" but I need to know "b" before I can figure out "y".  "Y" is the size, in inches, of the pulley I need to buy/find, and "b" is the RPM I'm aiming for.  And youtube videos aren't exactly helpful for that kind of information.

I've put the question to others out there, on a blog or two, and I'm hoping someone can help me out.  As far as I know, this will be the only tub-style chicken plucker in three counties (else I'd be borrowing/renting the other one, for heaven's sake!), and I'd like to get it right.  Or close.  Or useable.  Usable would work.

So, the moral to this story?  Don't count your chickens before they...  er...  Don't pluck... er... Don't order 50 broiler chicks before you've MADE your plucker.

There.