Quarter-Twist Spiral Dash Churn: Wings Twisted Between Arms Set at Right Angles

"The peculiar construction of the dash, consists in setting the arms to which the wings are attached, at right angles, upon opposite sides of the shaft, so as to produce a quarter twist in the wings as they extend along the shaft from one arm to the other."

Print the dash on end in one piece with supports: shaft, four arms and two wings each twisted a quarter turn. Print the crank arm. Print in PETG at 0.2 mm layers, 30 % infill, 4 walls; wash before first use.

Take a food-safe box about 220 × 150 × 160 mm, its proportions close to his 18 × 12 × 13 inches. Drill both ends on the axis 80 mm up. Push a 10 mm square hardwood shaft through one end, the dash and the other end, with a leather washer at each.

Glue the crank arm and a dowel handle on the shaft's outer end, and fit the box's lid, as his rabbeted cover.

US 7,490 drawing sheet, public domain (expired patent).

Let the heavy cream stand until it reaches about 15 °C, checked with the thermometer. Pour in 1.5 litres. Crank steadily; time until the butter comes. Then reverse the crank so the butter collects at the ends of the wings, as they said. Pour off the buttermilk, add cold water, churn a little and pour off again until it runs clear; work in a pinch of salt and weigh the butter.

**Cornelius R. Hight and John Hight** of Geneva, Kane County, Illinois, received US 7,490, dated 9 July 1850. Their wings could be wood or tin, split into the arms with a saw and fastened with brads or small screws; the wing's inner border was cut to arcs of 16- and 23-inch circles; the dash ran on a coupling gudgeon in a cast box and a screw pivot. They wrote it made butter "in from 5 to 8 minutes"; that is their claim, not our measurement. They claimed the application of a reacting spiral revolving dash to a box churn or any of the usual forms of churns. **Honest limits.** A food-safe box and a printed dash stand in for theirs, and our wings twist evenly rather than following their curved borders. FDM prints hold food in their layer lines, so wash well and replace when worn. Your times and weights are the result.