David J.

What would be the cost of welding up four frames? For reference of how many joints ther are, my design is up at the top of this thread. If we are talking about professional welding though, I would alter the design to use steel for lighter weight and less bulk. Probably square stainless steel tubing for the sides and some form of bar stock for the ends to hold the bolts.

Last weekend I made my first attempt to assemble the whole frame. I started by clamping the four sides to the wood form, then heated up one of the joints. The first thing I noticed was that the big gap I was worried about slowly shrunk as I heated the piece. In fact over the ten minutes it took to get it hot enough to melt the brazing material the short side (1 foot) expanded about 1/4". I worked both ends of the short side but had trouble filling the gap in the second joint. It just wouldn't stay filled over the full length of the joint. Finally I left the piece to cool down and discovered the second problem. It contracts as it cools and trapped the wood form as it did so. In addition it must have weakend the joint because it broke free a couple days later. I figured the problem was that even with MAPP gas the flame just wasn't hot enough to get the joint up to temperature without heating the entire piece. I would require an oxygen flame and that meant buying a welding kit. I was about ready to drop the project but I found an inexpensive oxygen/MAPP gas torch kit. It was only $10 more than a simple MAPP gas torch so I bit. I tried that tonight. Unfortunately I found that even that flame won't heat the joint enough to melt the brazing rod without heating the entire piece up. I believe a big problem with my design is that the large pieces of aluminum are too good a heat sink and just drains the heat away from the joint. The brazing rod isn't quite as easy to use as the instructional video would have one believe. Perhaps that is just because I'm not an accomplished welder to begin with. So once again I'm stuck. It's getting to the point where even if I do eventually complete a frame it may take more skill and equipment than my original design goal of being able to be built by any reasonably handy person with a few inexpensive tools. I am sorely tempted to take Kerry up on her discount and order a commercial cutter so I can get back to making chocolates.

I guess that I'll just keep using my two choppers until they are a complete mess and go back to using a knife. I'm not looking to make paste or dust, I just want small uniform chunks for rolling. So on a related note, does anyone sell a set of graduated screens for separating out different size chunks?

Thanks for all the replies so far. The ice crusher is probably quite sturdy but I'm wondering just how fine it would cut the nuts. I'm going for small pieces to coat truffles and I'm afraid that it might not reach that fine.

david, that's my new favorite way to decorate. it was a slab of almond praline paste mixed with chocolate. we put a foot on it and then on the top spread white chocolate over it. with a parchment paper piping cone, piped dark chocolate stripes and then marbled the stripes in with the tip of a knife (dragging the tip back and forth like you would on the top of a napoleon). then a couple of whacks on the table to smooth everything. before it all completely sets hard, you cut with the guitar. the chocolates are then hand dipped to the top. ← That is something that we didn't get in my class! Were the lines piped parallel with the short side of the pieces and the knife dragged down the long side? The lines would really be pulled a long distance but that looks consistent with what I'm seeing. Is the light brown bit just a mixture of the dark and light, or was there some milk chocolate there?

How were the rectangles in the top photo (one of them is pushed with a chocolate trail) finished? Is that a transfer or was that design made with chocolate in class?

That's just plastic stretch wrap that is laid down on the edges before the insert goes in. I watched as JPW took out the insert and pulled the plastic free at the end of my class with him. It doesn't have to cover the bottom of the heater, but he did lay it down just under the rim and down the sides to hold it in place. I have duplicated that at home with my 6Kg melters. The same idea works great for covering the vibrating table. Just peel off the rubber top, lay a couple pieces of plastic wrap over it, and put the top back on.

Oh, a confectionary funnel! I was looking at those already, though they too seem to be more expensive than they need to be. I was going to ask the question seperately, but this looks like a good place: Does anyone have experience with the automatic dosing funnel vs. the manual type? It seems that it would be really handy to have one that dispenses a fixed amount per trigger pull so you could work faster and neater. As in: http://pastrychef.com/Catalog/portion_cont...nel_1431286.htm I was using a disposable pastry bag to fill the mold through the small holes, but as I stated it took a minute or more to cover the whole mold and it was a more than a bit messy. The bag doesn't afford decent flow control so I ended up dribbling a lot of chocolate around as I shifted from hole to hole.

Are you suggesting something like this? http://www.vantagehouse.com/chocolateworld..._depositing.php I like it, but it looks expensive to me.

Thanks for asking! Did he say how he would fill the bottom? With the ridges around each cavity you can't just run a scraper across the top to clean it. ← Ah, didn't realize there were ridges. I would think you would fill it with a doser on a tempering machine (if you had one of course). I'm going to suggest you just over fill, don't scrape, put the top on, then scrape the sides before you start turning. ← I'll give that a try, but I think I'll use a flexible spatula to clean off as much extra chocolate as possible before placing the top half. I'm a little concerned about how much trouble it will be to clean off the face of the mold for a second go-around without having to flush it with hot water, but that would probably be the best bet for producing consistent shells so I will deal with it. It would keep the op from getting messy from overfill so maybe it will be a wash. I'll have to cut a piece of something ridged to hold over top to close the holes while I turn it. I think that I'll try that this weekend.

Thanks for asking! Did he say how he would fill the bottom? With the ridges around each cavity you can't just run a scraper across the top to clean it.

I want at tool that will produce uniform chunks of nut for coating truffles, so spice grinders or food processors are out as they will produce nut dust in short order. I have gone through two of the cheap nut grinders and I'm looking for somthing that will do the job and stand up to repeated use. The little spinning metal tines in the standard model end up bent or folded over completly because they are just not strong enough. Is there anything that will do the job?

That's a good point about any deep concave design messing with air flow. While that would prevent you from creating detailed designs I think that a dual action brush would still let you put small dots of color if you pulled the trigger back only a tiny bit to let out just a bit of color. At the least it would let you focus the stream better than the external model I have that causes me to overspray by quite a bit. The work in the books photo is cleaner than I could reproduce with my setup. That was me who was working on silicon inserts for the purpose of making fitting stencils. I found that it didn't work well for a couple reasons. The first was that even as thin as I could make them, the wall thickness shadowed some of the design. The second was that the air pressure tended to blow paint under the stencil, even to the point of blowing it out of the mold entirely if held too close. Of course I was working with a compressor that lacked a regulator and that might be able to be overcome to some degree. Someone might eventually figure out how to make an effective stencil, but I'm out of ideas at the moment. Brushes and freehand work are the only thing capable of detail designs right now and that's not for production work. However an airbrush and stencils may be just the ticket for making home made transfer sheets...

The brush in the book is dual action and I think that might be the key. Being able to run the air without the cocoa butter would let you blow the nozzle clean after each stroke. That would keep the insides from setting solid. Being able to vary the one or the other is also supposed to let you vary the line as you go.

I've seen widths advertised from 11/16" to 1" and thicknesses 1/8”, 3/16”, 3/8", 1/2" and 5/8". To me the key would be to have the width enough greater than the height so it doesn't tip over when you scrape over it. I found a Metal Supermarket quite near my house. In fact I pass by it to go to my fencing lesson, but that's on a Sunday and they would likely be closed. I'm thinking of getting a quote from them for stainless bars. If I do buy from them I'd be happy to shop for you as well if you want to wait until I get to Ann Arbor the next weekend. Ok, for 3/4 inch wide and 3/8 inch high rectangular stock: Stainless T-304 is $8.77 for a foot from onlinemetals.com or $28.05 for a 4' length if you want to cut it yourself. The steel bar is 0.9686 pounds per foot. If you want to go with 6061-T6 aluminum it drops to $1.81 for a foot or $5.77 for a 4' length. That's one third the weight at 0.3308 pounds per foot. The Metal Supermarkert is probably a bit more due to lower volume, but you wouldn't have to add postage. If you are willing to go with aluminum you could outfit yourself quite cheaply.

OK, did anybody else notice that on page 68 Greweling is showing a Badger Model 150 internal mix dual action air brush painting colored cocoa butter? I was under the impression from earlier threads that an internal mix brush would get hopelessly clogged, but apparently this is not the case. I saw the picture and matched it up with the only Badger model it could be based on the color of the stem, the feed, and most important, the dual action trigger button. The mist shown is much finer and under much more control that I can get with my external mix Badger Model 250. I don't know what head he has on it, but I suspect it is either Medium or Heavy: Fine (F) - pencil line to 2” (51mm) spray pattern Medium (M) - 1/32” (0.8mm) to 2 1/2” (63mm) spray pattern Heavy (H) - from 1/16” (1.5mm) to 3” (76mm) spray pattern Fine: Best suited to spray thinner materials such as water colors, inks, dyes, food coloring and gouache. Medium:The most popular choice; will spray airbrush ready paints, such as Badger’s Air-Opaque,Air-Tex, Modelflex, Freakflex, Nail Flair, and other properly reduced acrylics. Heavy: Ideal for heavily pigmented and/or higher viscosity materials such as enamels, lacquers, reduced glazes, gesso, and varnish This is getting me interested in trying out this model to see what sort of effects I can get painting molds. The Model 250 was so coarse in its spray that I didn't consider being able to do much other than heavy coating. The dual action lets you really control the flow of the line and that intrigues me. Being able to draw as fine a line as 1/16" with the heavy tip opens up possibilities.

As Peter Greweling states in "Chocolates & Confections": He also shows that Type VI crystals are stable up to 97F, 3 degrees F above Type V So if all this is correct, you can actually seed your chocolate with type VI instead of type V and obtain a slightly more stable product. How much more stable I don't know though. He says that type IV crystals take weeks to transform into type V, resulting in bloom. On the low end type I crystals last only minutes, so I would guess that on the other end type V take quite a bit longer to transform into type VI.

Could you describe the cuts you are thinking of? The two cross pieces are butt brazed to the sides of the stringers so I'm wondering where you are thinking of placing the angle. I'm planning on using machine head bolts with holes drilled to tighten the wires just like commercial models. I had briefly considered buying actual guitar tuners but discarded the idea after calculating the cost of even the cheapest economy tuner. The picture frame might work, but I'd be interested to see how much tension one of those could hold without buckling. Picture frames aren't designed with this sort of use in mind. I may have over engineered my design with 1/4" aluminum angle, but stringing up to twenty wires with a tension of only 10-20lbs each encouraged me to err on the side of strength.

I did indeed get the board cut... I first tried to mark 1/4" spacing on the board itself to guide the cutting, but once we got it on the tablesaw it became apparent that it wasn't going to work out well. My friend Don who is a pretty good woodworker played around with ideas and finally settled on using both the fence and the miter gauge. The fence has a measuring guide and was shifted 1/4" after each cut while the miter guage was used to push the board and ensure it remained square to the fence at all times. It took quite a while to make all the necessary cuts (and several unnecessary ones that were discarded), but you can see the results are fantastic. There is only one finger that is a bit larger than its neighboor due to having to switch the fence to the opposite side to take advantage of the table extension. Others following in my footsteps can avoid that necessity by starting on the correct side. I haven't finished the frame, but couldn't resist trying the board manually with a single piece of wire tied to two sticks for handles. I had to count every fourth slot so it took much longer than it will with the frame but it cut very nicely. That has energized me to get back to the frame. Speaking of which... I realized after making those carefull "L" shapes with the brazing rod that I didn't have to be so precise. It was so long since I had last read the instructions that I had forgotten that I was supposed to use a steel brush as I tinned. Above you can see where I reheated and brushed the surface. That is the end where I am going to braze on the round tube for the handle. Since the entire end is tinned I don't have to be concerned about where I want to place it. You can also see that where I had placed so much brazing material it actually ate into the aluminum bar so that there is a slight depression after it was brushed out. The good news here is that everyone else can forget about having to learn to be very accurate and neat when tinning the pieces. Just heat it up, slap it on, and brush it around. So to sum up this post, the cutting base for the homemade guitar cutter is a simple piece of 1"x12"x12" plastic cutting board, available online and at many supply shops for a fairly low cost. That helps in the effort to keep the total cost in my initial range.

I just leave the foot so it looks like a normal hand rolled truffle.

I've seen widths advertised from 11/16" to 1" and thicknesses 1/8”, 3/16”, 3/8", 1/2" and 5/8". To me the key would be to have the width enough greater than the height so it doesn't tip over when you scrape over it. I found a Metal Supermarket quite near my house. In fact I pass by it to go to my fencing lesson, but that's on a Sunday and they would likely be closed. I'm thinking of getting a quote from them for stainless bars. If I do buy from them I'd be happy to shop for you as well if you want to wait until I get to Ann Arbor the next weekend.

That's a real find! It looks like they sprayed part of the molds on an angle. If the letters on the Cocoa square are raised that would explain why they didn't get covered. Either that or they had to wipe parts of it clean after spraying and that would be a little delicate of an operation.

If you are using shells to speed and standarize production, then buying premade shells is the answer. I believe one company uses pretty good chocolate, if not the highest, so it probably wouldn't be noticable by customers since you redip them anyway. If you order enough that same company will make them with the chocolate of your choice. The speed with which you can fill and cap a tray of premade shells is an obvious draw if you are trying to increase production without increasing staff. If you are out to have fun and learn as much as possible about chocolate, then making your own is the the way to go. Also if you only want a few shells for specialty truffles such as liquid centers it doesn't make sense to order a huge case of shells. I don't think it's for everyone due to the effort required to perfect results, but I might change my mind if I manage to get to the point of cranking them out quickly and easily. I've got a 6Kg melter so I could potentially produce them continuously with two or three molds.

That is how I have approached the mold so far and how I plan to use it. I want to churn out a lot of spheres to be used on some future day so I don't have to worry about having too much ganache for a mold. I have gone two routes to deal with the "ornament ball" stem. The first is to let it occur and use a sharp modeling knife to trim it off. That works surprisingly well. The second is to use a drill bit the size of the hole and screw it in and pull it out when the chocolate is still soft. Doing it by hand you can be carefull enough not to damage the mold, but it's messy as you have to clean the bit off after each cavity cleaning. I'm considering a third method which uses short lengths of brass tubing to match the drain hole. Just let the chocolate drain through the tubes, then when it is starting to set, pull the tubes out and end up with a perfect hole. Of course you then have all those little tubes to clean. I think I'll stick with the knife method for now. I think the key is to come up with a viscosity and set time that works reliably.

That's the sort of thing I need to know. I'm usualy trying to teach too much at once. Having them roll a few in cocoa powder or nuts is also a good idea. That will give them more confidence to try it at home. Someone else also mentioned bark with is a great idea. I haven't made it myself yet so I hadn't thought of it. I had thought of printing an instruction/FAQ/souce sheet as a takeaway. The cooler/packaging idea is good in case it's hot out. Maybe a few inexpensive cold packs and cardboard boxes. I hadn't thought of selling bulk chocolate, but that's a great idea. It's sold here at "Whole Foods", but it's twice the price of mail order. Obviously I need to find out how much time they want to spend, but I think that I've got some good suggestions here.