Single Lever Press

The Lulu VICOBA group has shown the most enthusiasm for our briquetting project. Making briquettes quickly became a competition amongst villagers to see who could exert the most force on the press and make the finest briquette. They made better briquettes than us. If they could have had it their way we would have left all our equipment so they could start producing briquettes right away. The only catch being that they wanted all the equipment for free. I don’t blame them since the compound lever press cost us over 100 USD to build. We left the visit with our equipment but unsure of what the best next step would be. We are hoping that by using local wood, a local carpenter, and by not being a ‘mzungu’ (foreigner in Swahili, usually Caucasian) they’ll be able to build the press at an affordable price.

That evening, I was looking through the vast collection of documents that have accumulated on DHE’s external hard driver and found a design for a single lever press. The single lever press uses significantly less wood, in exchange for requiring more strength to press. Less wood means less labor and that means a much cheaper press. In fact, approximately 35% cheaper than the compound lever press.

So, we had the press commissioned by our skilled wood worker, Kalalou. The press was recently delivered and tested. The feedback has been mixed. Though the press is less of a financial burden to the villagers, they immediately noticed how mechanically inferior it is to the compound lever press. We left the Lulu VICOBA with designs for both presses. They will let us know how much it will cost them to build each machine and we’ll see from there.

Here is a picture of the single lever press: