Agricultural Hammer Millis

[Alcione]

Hi everyone,
My first time to this forum and glad I found you. I am at the beginning of learning to prospect and focus at the moment on my own property where I have lots of granite, quarts and couple of creeks so I will be kept busy will I learn.

My question is about hammer mills for rock crushing. While I would like to have a go at making one, I don't really have the engineering skills to do it well. A store bought one is out of the question at the moment. However, I wonder if anyone here has explored the use of the old (used to be common) agricultural hammer mills like the Massey Ferguson hammer mill or similar other brands. My reckoning suggests the hammers may need to be hard faced and all the dust control is built in already. Most are PTO driven and I have a tractor. They are usually quite reasonable in price too.
So, anyone checked these out?

Thank you.

 

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[Mad Machinist]

THe housings on most of these are made from cast iron which is relatively soft. While they would work to some extent, they would wear out rather quickly. And the screens wouldn't last but a few minutes due to their design.

 

[Alcione]

Thank you for your fast response. I knew the screens would be no good and new one(s) would be required but didn't know about the cast iron housing. Thank you for pointing that out. I guess my rationale was if I could get something cheap enough with the PTO drive train I could modify it but since the housing will be so soft and critical to the design, its probably not worth the trouble.
Cheers