HOKITIKA FIRM MAKES NEW MACHINE FOR FIJI

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 October 1948, Page 2

HOKITIKA FIRM MAKES NEW MACHINE FOR FIJI

A machine designed to mechanise the starch extraction industry in Fiji, where the work was previously carried out by hand, has been constructed at the Hokitika foundry of Mr G. Cederman. The machine will be transported to Fiji this month, and further experiments will be carried ont there, prior to its installation. Such machinery was made in the Malayan States prior to the war, but since then has been unavailable, and Mr Cederman recently obtained from the Department of Agriculture in Fiji a contract to undertake m Hokitika the first assembly of the machine in New Zealand. The machinery had to be designed in wooden moulds before being set into steel. Preparations were completed last June, and the actual building of the plant began then, being finished last The plant has three parts—a washing machine, a rasping machine and a straining machine. The tapioca roots are first placed in the washing machine and proceed to the rasping machine, which operates at the rate of 600 revolutions a minute. Thence they go to the straining machine where the tapioca starch is strained from the waste. In drying pans the water is evaporated, leaving the pure starch.