I found an old cream separator at auction that is in very good shape and I am fairly sure I have all the pieces. The problem is I assembled it as I think it should be done and I have a piece left over! It's nearly as frustrating as missing a piece. This is a big separator that bolts to the floor. The piece I have left over is round and seems to be hollow with a 4 edged prong sticking up. The prong is maybe an inch long and the round piece is about 3 inches across and an inch to an inch and a half tall....sort of a fat disk really. I am being over run by sugar ants! These are tiny little black ants that will go after absolutely anything that has a bit of sugar in it. I can't put boxed cereal on the shelves or a jar of honey because they will work away at it till they get into it. Has anyone used anything that worked to kill them and discourage them? Organic solutions would be nice but at this point I am prepared to wage all our war on the things. Thanks Amanda

-- Amanda S (aseley@townsqr.com), October 24, 2000

Answers

Hi Amanda, can only help with the sugar ants, sorry! Use boric acid powder, available from the drug store or Wally World, put down a thin line of it along the edges of your rooms, across the back of your counters, across all your door thresholds, along the bottom of all your window sills, you can even put little dishes of in your cupboards. It's fairly non-toxic to humans and pets, but works well with ants. The little round ant traps from the grocery store help too, are safe to use around food and pets. Most importantly is to remove all temptation for them to come in in the first place,keep all food in the refrigerator or "hermetically" sealed up in air tight storage containers, and keep ALL sufaces and floors clean and washed of all food residues, crumbs, and the like." Eat off the floor clean" counters and floors helps tremendously, that alone worked for me. Good luck, Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), October 24, 2000.

Hardy little creatures aren't they? Get boric acid powder at the drug store...put a tiny bit (half a teaspoon) into a upside down bottle cap and stick these in the cupboards behind the food as well as under the sinks and anywhere else you see ants. If you have pets or small children, forget putting the boric acid anywhere except the cupboards.....store your sweet goodies for a time in plastic bread bags with the sealers built in..the ants will find the boric acid appetizing and they will eat themselves to death...works for roaches (ugh) just as well...some people mix the boric acid with plaster of paris stuff..I have found this to be a case of overkill (pardon the pun)....also, I have found since moving to ANT KINGDOM (Alabama), there is a nifty product that is a foam...people down here actually use it to effectively seal up tiny cracks under cupboards, and where TV lines come in the house, etc...it keeps any little bugs, including ants out of the house in the first place..unfortunately for me, my dogs give ants and crickets a free ride into the house several times a day...sigh....God bless.

-- Lesley (martchas@gateway.net), October 24, 2000.

Does your cream seperator have two spouts coming off the chamber that holds the cone shaped disks? If it does and the top of the chamber is open you should be able to look down into it and see a hole. The extra piece you have sits with the prong in that hole. The container on the top of the seperator that holds the milk should have a spiget on it that drains into the top of the chamber right on top of your extra piece. This is kinda like a float I think, regulates the amount of milk that travels into the chamber and over the disks. Cyntrifical (sp) force seperates the cream from the milk when these disks spin. I hope that helps, kinda hard to explain on the net without pictures. I have two cream seperators, both belonged to my folks, one with a motor and one with a hand crank. Mom used to use them once in a while but I don't remember that well. Fortunately both of them are assembled and complete (I think) so I could look for you. If you get one torn apart I would think it would be difficult to reassemble. The disks in these are all a little different, like weight or shape makes a difference in where they are in the stack. If yours doesn't work right might try rearranging the disks.

-- Betsy K (betsyk@pathwaynet.com), October 25, 2000.