I live in the country and I have a gravel driveway. I need to 'replenish' the gravel routinely, to the tune of $500, while at the same time, I routinely have field stones, recovered concrete pieces and other big pieces of rock that I need to 'dispose' of. Seems to me that there could be a machine that crushes rocks on a small scale that I could buy.

Many rural people already own a log-splitter, which is a machine on the scale and design of what I'm thinking of. I don't think the hydraulic ram would work for splitting rocks, though.

I think a flywheel similar to that on a hay-baler (100+ lbs) with a slider-crank and an overload-spring built into the crank would be the first thing I'd try. It would look something like the mechanism on the side of a steam locomotive, but where the train 'engine' drives, instead there would be a ram-hammer with a mesh-container beneath it to allow only smashed-small rocks to get through. Spin the flywheel with either tractor hydraulics or a small gas engine. And safety covers. Lots of them.

I know that my farmer-grandpa in the 1940s used to go out and break-rocks with a sledge after supper for many years because he never bought gravel. If the average log splitter costs $1200, it wouldn't take too long to pay for a machine like this. I often smash my own rocks too, but not efficiently.

Maybe there would be a market for something like this.

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