I turned Washing Machine Motor into a Welding Machine

We are going to make an upcycled multi purpose rotary machine. Something that has a large plate, that can turn at an adjustable, yet reliable and consistent speed. We will be using an old washing machine for the motor and frame, a scrap microwave gives us an electronic timer, and other junk makes up the rest.

This instructable is quite big! Maybe I should have made it three or four separate ones - it contains details of how to wire and implement a few different methods for speed control of old washing machine motors (useful for any number of projects), through to rotary welding, green sand mulling , upcycled microwave timers, etc etc).

You could mosey through from the beginning to the end, seeing how I built the whole machine, or you might rather skip to sections that are most appropriate for you. For that reason, hears a little quick-reference contents for you:

Steps 1-4 Dismantling stuff for upcycling

Step 5-9 General machine structure

Steps 10-13 The spinning plate

Steps 14-21 Re-using a series wound, washing machine motor, basic speed control & closed loop control with Arduino.

Steps 27-30 More mechanical speed reduction and why we need it (pulley talk)

Step 31-34 Microwave timer (a simple timing solution that would work for many projects

Step 35-36 Rotational photography - 360 degree shots

Step 37-44 Mulling machine details, (somewhat in process)

Steps xxx Rotary welding table & pottery wheel (very much in process)

Parting Thoughts

This step is where I encourage you to reuse that's broken junk for your projects. Material based design, as I call it, starts with taking stock of what 'rubbish' you have easily available, thinking about what you want your project to achieve, and tying the two together. 3D modeling and CAD is great, and I'm a big fan, but I am not so keen on the tendency to design in abstraction from the materials, and then use a prime fresh (and often expensive) material to make said design. Therefore I am a big advocate for having an intimate connection with the materials you plan to use (and an awareness of where they are coming from, environmental costs, etc.).

Getting tactile and hands on makes you a better designer, even if you mainly model in CAD. At least that's what I reckon. And a super bonus to upcycling is that as you take stuff apart, you get an in-depth knowledge of how other people designed stuff in the past!

For this workshop tool, we are wanting a spinning action, and, like many people, I had an old washing machine laying about. It leaked but the main bearing and the motor was good,...Perfect.

Lets dismantle and see what we can use.

Dismantle the washing machine

Undo the outer screws, and pull things apart. We are looking to take out the main drum (be ready to catch the water or do this outside!), salvage the bearings, spider, drum, frame, wiring loom, drive belt, motor and some of the control board components. Oh and for this one we are going to use the steel body of the machine too.

Once you take the drive pulley off the spindle, you should be able to push the shaft out of the bearings. This might need some persuasion with a hammer - protect the end of the shaft with a scrap of wood or the hammer may 'miss-shape' it and the drive pulley won't go back on nice.

Yep there's plenty of goodies in them scrap washing machines. Mains water pressure rated solenoid valves, heating elements, a nice stainless steel drum, a pirex glass bowl, mains power water pump, even a bunch of nice coach screws (these held the two halves of the plastic drum together)!

It will be nice to have a timer turn the machine off after say 2 minutes, when it is being used to mull green casting sand. A microwave timer is great for this - as well as many other projects! It has a ready made electric timer that controls a relay. It even has a clear display showing the remaining time...

The frame of my washing machine was a bit rusty and very grubby (it had been outside for some time). If you do a project like this I recommend purchasing a machine that is in better condition. I went with what I had though, which meant cleaning (pressure washing :P and wire brushing the rust off.

I want to use the inside for storage - I'll probably put shelves in - so instead of the small round port-hole, I used an angle grinder and slitting disc to cut a square opening in the front (that's approximately the size of an old scrap kitchen cupboard door I have)...

The edges of the cut were sanded smooth to prevent accidents, and all the bare metal was touched up with metal paint.

The bearings are encased in the big plastic washer drum, and after rudely hacking them out with the jigsaw, I used the bandsaw and then the lathe to make a cylindrical part that would fit nicely into a 'holesaw sized' hole.

This would be perfectly possible without a bandsaw or lathe, it would just take a bit longer to use a handsaw and files to cut it out...

The original top of t His washing machine was a bit too broken to use. It was made of plastic laminated onto chipboard which had got damp and surrendered to the resultant softening effect.

Luckily I had a scrap of nice ply I recently fished from a skip. I don't know what kind it is but it seems like some darker wood and is over 1" thick, so will do nicely. None of the edges are straight, looking to have been cut with a jigsaw to fit round a wiggly wall. The circular saw with a guide works wonders to square up this kind of thing, that would be a bit of a handful to push through the tablesaw.

Adding the plywood top helped to stiffen up the whole structure, but I still wanted a bit more security for the bearing mount so I added some oak hardwood I had chainsaw milled (check out my CS Mill I'ble) some years back. It was dense, strong and hard, so it should work well.

I ripped it in half on the bandsaw, and used some reclaimed engine bolts that were nice and long to clamp the halves together. Then the holesaw created the opening to receive the bearing block. Loosing the bolts allows me to slide the bearing block in, tightening them up locks the bearings in place. Check the picture notes for more details...

I cut a few wooden spacers so the lid fit to the uneven curves of the sheet metal washing machine frame.

A bit of fiddling about had it nice and square, firm and level, and ready to be screwed in place.

The aluminum washing machine 'spider' needs to be removed from the drum. My one was riveted on, so needed drilling to remove. Once off its clear that this particular one is going to need a recess to fit flush with the underside of the platter we are making.

The remains of the ply I used for the lid and some shuttering ply is cut into circles. I got this shuttering ply from a company near us that uses it to produce packing crates for shipping. They have reasonably big 3 x 2.5ft 'off-cuts' they can't use :D

It's not great quality stuff, but when laminated together, defects in individual sheets cancel out and it's really strong!

To make for a stronger glue up I give the faces of the plywood a quick once over with the sander. I found what was the 'best' face, and designated that as the 'top' of the platter.

On the other joining faces, glue was spread evenly, leaving no patches uncovered. Then the whole thing is clamped up.

Washing machine motors are designed to run at high speeds (more on that later), so we need to use the large pulley that fit on the spider shaft. The pulley is dished and would snag on the undercarriage if used as designed, so we need to mount the other way round. Being aluminum it is easy enough to cut or file the rectangular keyway all the way through so this is possible.

There are plenty of other types of motor types that could be used for this project, some would probably be better choices, but since I am in charge here, and I have (and you should be able to get your hands on) a spare washing machine motor or two - that's what we are talking about.