Cowen Handyman Uncapper

[Dan Williamson]

Just curious if anyone has the Cowen Handyman Uncapper or has ever used one!

I'm curious how the work and what opinions if any that you have of them.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks.

[honeyman46408]

Dan
Vic has one.

[Dan Williamson]

Thanks Ed. I might have to give him a call. My goal is to end next season with around 60 hives and carpal tunnel was a real problem for me even this year with what I had.

[greenbeekeeping]

Hi Dan. If you look around you can find a used cowan for a little of nothing. I picked mine up for $500.00. If you want one I will keep an eye out.

[Dan Williamson]

Yeah thanks matt...let me know if you run across something... Doesn't necessarily have to be a cowen. I've been considering a maxant chain uncapper as well... so whatever you hear. Part of my problem is that I don't have a water heater in my shop yet for heating knives....I believe cowen offers a water heater specifically for their uncappers now....

I don't have alot of noney to throw at an expensive uncapper at this time. I'm not going into debt to grow. I'll do it a bit at a time one purchase at a time.

At this time I'm just planning on 100 hives for now... and then see what I want to do after that.
Still trying to figure out how I want to approach uncapping etc.... also if you hear of any honey pumps/ clarifiers for cheap and you don't need them let me know....

[swarm_trapper]

for 300$ i beleive you can get knives for the cowan from walter kelly co. that are electric heated they are slick that is what we have.

[greenbeekeeping]

Dan. If you have a kelley style waxmelter you can get a cheap circulation pump from menards or lowes and use the water from the wax melter to run through the knives. Thats alot cheaper than buying the unit from cownan.

Matt

[Dan Williamson]

Interesting thoughts on the electric knives from Kelleys or the circ pump.

I don't have a kelleys melter but I do have another type of tank I plan on using for melting wax that uses a 1000watt tank heater (typically used in cars to heat the anti-freeze). I might be able to hook up a circ pump to it and use that.... HMMMM

The knives would require less hoses running around and keep it simple but the circ pump would be cheaper....

I'll have to think about the best solution for me.

Again if you hear of one let me know.

Matt- the cowen you got for $500, did it work or did you have to overhaul the system?

Swarm Trapper- Did you have to get Kelleys to custom build the knives or did you have to modify them to get them to work with the cowen?

[Keith Jarrett]

Dan,
I have a new uncapper I pulled off a 28 frame auto-load extractor by cowen, the hand crank style.
Keith

[Dan Williamson]

Keith.... I'm not sure I follow you... Have you used it? Like it? How does it work?

[ozzy]

I bought one last year and really like it. It has the water heated knives and I paid the extra amount to get the water heater they designed for it. A friend bought one and tried to use his water heater to heat it but it didn't work well. He was thinking about the electric knives but when I talked to Cowan they said we quit selling it with electric knives for good reason. I found I could set the temp at 150 or so and the knives went through comb like butter. You can actually use it without heat if the frames are warm. My wife had never helped me extract before but she got started uncapping with it and kept up with 2-20 frame radials. It didn't tear the comb and if my wife can do it without problems it must be fool proof. She is certainly no fool but she isn't mechanically inclined so unless something works perfectly she will break it, jam it or be unable to make it work right.
While I did solve the problem of uncapping I had another problem of dealing with lots of cappings with lots of honey in them. Now I am thinking I should have bought the Maxant uncapper that has the spinner under the uncapper. The cappings fall into the spinning spinner and the honey is spun out constantly. That would be preferable to having to transfer the cappings by hand to another spinner. Now I will have to buy an auger and spinner whereas if I had bought the Maxant system I would have only needed another grand to get the whole thing-uncapper and spinner.
I am now thinking of not even addressing the problem this year but trying to solve my filtering problem by getting a honey sump tank built and buying a honey sump pump. If I do get a spinner I will probably transfer cappings by hand.
I plan on getting both extractors to drain into the sump tank and pumping mostly clean honey into one big tank where the wax can rise to the top. Once the tanks is full the bottom honey should be clean enough to transfer to other tanks where it can be bottled the following day. Granted, I will have to transfer it a bucket at a time but that shouldn't be as bad as stopping all the time to clean filters.
I noticed that the handyman cleans up really easily. Even the propolis came off so easily I couldn't believe it. I guess the propolis doesn't stick to polyethlene well.

[ozzy]

one additional thought if you try to use some other heat source for hot water make sure it is controlable since if it is much above 150 the wax will melt back on the comb and seal cells of honey making it a real problem.

[honeyman46408]

I know a guy that does 500 supers with a Cowen and has NO heat on the blades

[peggjam]

Keith

I'd be interested in that uncapper...how much?

[swarm_trapper]

i know that cowan does not sell the electric knives, but walter kelly co last time i checked had them and they are custom made for the cowans. Now steam might be better im not sure never used it. and yea i have used the knifes cold before but the comb should be warm. Nick

[Keith Jarrett]

Dan,

[Keith Jarrett]

Dan,
I bought a cowen 28 frame auto-load ,I had a auto feed uncapper already, so I took off the new one and put on mine.
I ran a couple supers threw the new one , so its still new.
Dan contact me off line with e-mail and we can go for their.Also look on cowen's web site and you can see the uncapper.
Keith

[Dan Williamson]

Keith,

Sent you a PM.