Since I am researching the technical possibilities of flax processing in a small scale, I figured I might as well experiment around it myself too. I thought that by far the easiest thing of the whole processing line would be to make a mini break. I have the balcony flax still waiting to be processed anyway, so I decided to just try and make a DIY mini break.

I’ve used an app called “gears 3D print” to make the mini rollers – so yes, it’s practically gears with smooth touching angles. I had no clue wether my settings would work in relation to breaking the material. I just went for it. The rollers are 5cm long, with an outer diameter of 4cm and 1cm inner. After printing the rollers I got press-in nuts (M5), threaded rods (M5) and regular nuts (M5). I assembled it all, as you can see on the picture, on an aluminium strip of 1,5 cm which I bent in shape.

The first test shows that the flax stalk rather gets crimped than broken, which is not what I hoped it would do. I will see how I can change that. I have two thoughts: 1. The rollers are too close to each other 2. The flax is under retted. I will change the distance of the rollers first, as I think that might be more of the problem. I will keep you updated about the progess and as soon as I am confident with it, I’ll also share the .stl file.