Design and fabrication of a manual tilapia fish descaler.

Abstract

Uganda's economy is largely agro based and with the growing technology it has to meet the need of farmers and markets both locally and internationally, Uganda has merged to one of the largest producers of fish in East Africa and Tilipia fish being one the potential nutritious foods (sauce) in many regions of the country and outside the country consumed: in various forms (frozen, dried, smoked, deep flied boiled etc.) depending on consumer preference. Fish descaling is one of" preliminary fish processing operations, due 10 lack of-affordable descaling machines, in Uganda the descaling operations are done using rudimentary tools such as knives which. are time consuming, labour intensive and involve high risk of injuring man descaling. Some manual fish descalers that exist are expensive thus un-affordable by local fish processors hence limiting the output of fish. Therefore, there is need of a fish descaler which reduces time, drudgery, and injury to man descaling due to the increased demand for fresh processed fish. Therefore, this study objective was to design and construct a manual fish descaling machine which could enable fish processors descale their fish at fast and enhance quality production of fish prime products. The design and construction of the various components of the fish descaler was curried out by analysing forces acting on them so as components. do. not fail during operation. Force analysis led to the selection of proper materials to withstand forces to avoid. failure. Engineering drawings. of the. various components of the descaler were designed and drawn before the various components were constructed. Then machine assembly was done last according to the engineering drawings and the performance of the machine was tested. Summarily. this prototype development of a manual tilipia fish descaler, if implemented, will provide a great remedy to the challenges faced during local descaling of tilipia fish on the various landing sites and markets where fish. is processed in Uganda.