Fish cleaning table

[charleville]

I bought a pre-loved kitchen sink with a nice long flat area which will become the basis of a fish cleaning table which I intend to build.

http://img.skitch.com/20090603-n6wr6uhre4nn577t93s2g46nmt.preview.jpg (http://skitch.com/charleville2/b1w2g/skitched-20090603-105348)
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I bought the sink from the Reverse Garbage shop yesterday (http://www.reversegarbage.com.au ) and since it was sitting under a tree for yonks and is covered with mud and tree droppings it is pretty yucky but I have no doubt that it will look as good as new after I blast it with a 2100 psi pulsating water jet from with my Gerni and clean it all up with Gumption.


Anyway, I want to make a fish cleaning table that I shall leave outside in the weather and am seeking any ideas and advice please on what features to build into the table.

I intend to weld up a galvanised steel frame with the stainless steel sink on top, wheels on one end and a couple of handles at the other end so that I can wheel the cleaning table out of view behind my shed after use. I ain't no artist but this gives the general idea ...


http://img.skitch.com/20090603-dk49xxk92u1ku54yi5i5grh5rn.preview.jpg (http://skitch.com/charleville2/b1w4f/fishcleaningtable0001)
Click for full size (http://skitch.com/charleville2/b1w4f/fishcleaningtable0001) - Uploaded with plasq (http://plasq.com)'s Skitch (http://skitch.com)


The features that I am thinking about include a short piece of pipe welded on to a leg so that I can rest a pistol style water nozzle in it and some piping to drain the sink on to the garden plus maybe a shelf underneath to hold the fishing cleaning tools and detergents and scourers etc to keep the table clean with, plus the nylon cutting board that I would be placing over the sink top to fillet the fish on hygienically.


Any other ideas, please?




.

[goat boy]

In summertime flies maybe a prob (little prob or big prob depending on where you are exactly I guess). Maybe weld four poles on each corner (or just screw them on for removal during winter or whenever you don't want them). That way, if it's fly season you could just drape a mozzie net over the poles and stand stand under without all those little buzzing friends trying to keep you and your fish company.

[welder]

Make it tall enough for a 5 gallon plastic bucket under the drain with a screen in the bucket to catch the chunks and maybe a hose fitting at the bottom side of the bucket for a drain to the garden.

[jimbo 69]

i use an old ironing board with some lino on it

[moater]

I lived in a small coastal town here in Vic and practically everyone had an old sink setup to clean their fish,works well.

I'm gunna use a baby change/bath table now that my little bloke doesn't need it.I can rip off the padded top and seal the wooden board then add a cutting board, or even replace it with something else.The bath sits underneath the hinged top so I can put a bit of (saved while fishing) saltwater with some ice and put fish in it..will be okay for most bread n butter species.The table also has plastic lift out trays underneath that I could put bits and pieces out of the way,also heads,frames etc.

It'll be a pearler and although made of plastic should last a few years.Would be great to have something like this made out of poly or alloy, DIY assembly like the change table and a bigger (+ insulated) bath/holding tank.I'll get a couple of 20 litre containers full of seawater before ending my fishing trip so I can also have better water to wash the cleaned fish too. 8-)

Darren

[charleville]

Thanks guys for those initial comments. Much appreciated.

I have now given the old sink an initial scrub to see what is underneath the muck and I reckon that it will do the job nicely. There are even a few little dents in it to add character. ;D

http://img.skitch.com/20090603-mn1equm2mq9ij8yb1mw39d2qr7.preview.jpg (http://skitch.com/charleville2/b1ids/skitched-20090603-132659)
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[Fisher4life]

Best advice i can offer, having used a few different tables in the past, is to make your cleaning bench at a height that is comfortable to working on ie. Bar table hieght if you clean fish standing up. Otherwise you'll have a sore back after a successfull trip.

The sink would be a good idea to wash the fillets with salt water after they've been cleaned

I personally use an old study desk with a laminated marine ply top (hygenic, and protects the knives, easy to clean down etc.) and a comfortable cane chair to sit in while i'm cleaning the fish.
A big bucket of water to one side with knives, garden secatures and diamond stone to keep them reasonably clean and keeps the flies off the knives. A hose with a trigger nozzle to wash the table down after each fish and also to wash the slime from the fish before starting. On the other side i have the esky of fish and beverages, and also a big container for the fillets.

[Horse]

I reckon it will work very nicely:) . You might have to play around with cutting board thicknesses to aid in keeping the knife blade flat when skinning
I use one of those portable trestles as I can set it to a reasonable height and it cleans up easily. Just chuck the biggest cutting board you can find on it and you are in business. When camping it doubles as a platform to help pack the roofrack:D .

[GBC]

Jeesus Horse, some little jap fish man will be crying in his saki when he finds the shot of your yellowfin. Looks like you won a tug of war against a shark for him:P Not that I'd do much better - the photo angle just doesn't do it justice.

I just put up a post about keeping the cutting board above the height of the drainboard lip so he can skin successfully, but it seems to have disappeared. I use the bunnings trestles too. I thought they'd have rusted by now but so far so good.

[GBC]

Hang on I'll take a guess (just had another look)- he wouldn't fit in the esky in the back of the shot so you barreled him at sea and put him all back together for the photo???

Makes more sense than - you tried to fillet him with a spoon;D

[cormorant]

plenty of old stainless benches at the minute from food and takeaways going broke , just look in the auctions or the 2nd hand suppliers and with stainess wire in the mig is quick and easy to build frame. Gal will rust pretty fast.

[Horse]

Hang on I'll take a guess (just had another look)- he wouldn't fit in the esky in the back of the shot so you barreled him at sea and put him all back together for the photo???

Makes more sense than - you tried to fillet him with a spoon;D

;D ;D ;D Its actually a LT GBC but you can't really tell from the shot. I had to cut him up with a bait knife to fit into the esky after catching him solo on an 8kg spin outfit. I was fair knackered by the end of it. As I recall I copped a bit of grief about my cutting skills at the time:P ;D

[Bear001]

I have used:-
1. Trestle ladder
2. Ironing Board frame (currently in use - good cause I can lower it if the back starts to ache and want to sit down)
3. Have a 2nd hand sink ready to attach to the new boat shed as soon as its finished
4. back tray of Hubbys truck...or mate's Cruiser....when they aren't looking;D:-X ;D

[PNG1M]

1) Essential addition number one: Stubbie Holder/s

2) Maybe one of those knife holder bizzos that the butchers hang round their waists to put knives in. You could hang one from a hook off your table.

3) Or you could rig up a kind of sliding frame underneath that slides out that has a tray that lifts out, to put your fillets/fish in until you're ready to bring'em into the house. You know, a kind of set up like in ovens to slide the oven tray in & out, except it would slide out from under your sink & then tuck back under so as not to get in the way.

4) You could build in a section as a 'chopping board' facility as you often need to cut down hard when cleaning & preparing fish. Cutting direct onto a sink top aint good on blades. So maybe you could install a flat wooden bit somewhere, maybe towards one end of the sink top. Maybe you could design one on a hinge that lifts up from the far end, with some kind of a support to keep it in place once lifted.

5) A frame or platform underneath for a 12 volt battery operated fridge to keep the beers in. A frothy chop or three can be handy items in the fish cleaning process.

6) A hook to hang an old towel on for drying your hands & wiping utensils.

7) More stubby holders

8) Weld a tubular umbrella support onto the corner so you can stick in a brolley to make some shade if/as/when needed

9) Gym membership so you can work out & build up enough strength to push the thing around

10) I think I'll give ten a miss

[cormorant]

10) Keg fridge and tap kit. No point in running out

11) mincer on the end so all the leftovers go straight through into bags for the berly


12) length of 4" hose long enough to reach under neighbours fence from sink drain. What fish smell mate you must have a sewerage leak - honest

12) .......................


Did anyone mention keep it simple We use a couple of plastic chopping boads on top that fit in the dishwasher for actual final fillets to take inside and vacume bag machine for the freezer

[charleville]

11) mincer on the end so all the leftovers go straight through into bags for the berly



I once bought an old manual mincer for berley but it was too hard to clean. An old electric food processor is a whole lot easier.


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[PNG1M]

12....

Maybe some kind of radar/detection device that goes bip-bip-bip-bip or flashes a warning light when your missus steps out through the back door of the house, so you know to smile nicely & wave to her - after you've stashed your beer out of sight.

[fez]

I converted an old wooden BBQ frame (won't rust) and is lighter. Wacked a piece of marine ply on it and siliconed a SS top to it. I do use a wooden board under the fish so as not to blunten the knives. A holder for the hose, use a bucket of water for the knives etc. Works a treat, even comes camping with use and gets used as a food prep area, gets a good clean each time.

cheers,
fez

[oldboot]

If you go back to reverse garbage they usualy have some big chunks of white LDPE cutting board material.

Arrange somewher for that... probaly on the other side of the sink to the draining board.

you realy need a flat surface that is flush right to the edge for filleting and especilay skinning......you'll need the draining board for stacking up the huge piles of fillets;)

the "correct" height for the work surface is level with your elbow with your arm by you side arround 1m high.

cheers

[revs57]

G'day Bruce,

Mate, I saw a doco article on cutting board surfaces - A few years ago they made all restaurants and butchers change over from wooden surface and blocks to the white LDPE surface Old Boot mentions in the name of hygeine.

this article tested a number of surfaces to see which was the most hygeinic.

They put some bacteria on a marble surface left it over night, it had multiplied and spread to cover most of the surface by the morning - even after cleaning.

They put the same bacteria on the LDPE, washed it - it too had spread over most of the area by morning even after cleaning

They then put the same bacteria on a timber cutting block - washed it, by mornign it had gone nowhere, trapped in the fibres of the timber and as it had nothing to feed off - it had died.

I have a scabby old piece of non marine ply 1/2" thick as my bait board on Flamin Riptide, give it a quick scrub and hose off - its fine, been there three and a half years, going well - doesn't look like needing replacing and its as cheap as chips.

Perhaps up the ante to 3/4" for your filleting/skinning board and set it up stradding the run off area of the sink with some 1/2"x1" beading arfound the edge to locate it and hold it place, and then it is still removable, so you can squirt it off on the neighbours side of the fence when he aint looking!

[oldboot]

I mentioned LDPE simply for convienience. The vast majority of commercial fish and meat processing is done on LDPE boards.

I am well aware of the timber cutting board debate.

If you are going down the wood cutting board road you need to have the whole story.
When I was a kid butchesr used to work on what amounted to a piece of tree trunk on legs.....a wooden cutting board.....this has not been permitted for many years with good reason.

If you want a full understanding of the matter go onto any of the major woodworking/ woodcraft sites a do a search.

If going for wood you have to be carefull about the spicies.

Not too hard, not too soft, one that won't stain, taint, poison or infect the food.

Then it should be maintained.

The short answer is hoop pine (not a true pine). It is hard enough to be durable, soft enough not to blunt the knives. The grain is tight and not ring porous ( like hardwoods) and it does not support rot and mould like some other true pines.
It also will not taint food. In the past it was the timber of choice for butter boxes because of its properties.

You are realy looking for a 30mm odd think board, with no splits, cracks, knots or holes.

I would not be recommending ply for food preparation because the veneers are rotary cut and have (not so) microscopic cracks all over that go the full depth of the veneer. It will be imposible to clean material out of these cracks.
Most of the plies I have dealt with quite porous and absorb liquids very redily.
Also quite a lot of ply ( particularly radiata and slash) will go mouldy soon as look at you, because of its high sugar and starch content, some of it appears to be well impregnated with mould spores during the manufacturing process.

Now to maintenance. To a certain extent the knives will chop up the surface.....there will come a point where the surface is too rough to be scrubbed clean effectivly, at this point the board should either be discarded or planed flat and smooth.

Regardless of the cutting board, you must be able to scrub it clean and remove any remaining food matter. Yes there are documented antibacterial properties of SOME timbers ( not all), but those properties will not protect you and yours from gross filthiness.



On another matter

Butchers do not wash meat in water so why would you wash fish fillets.
It is far better to clean the fish properly prior to filleting and maintain proper hygeen methods while filleting.

If the fish is clean likwise the work surface, your hands and the knives, there should be no need to wash the fillets.

Washing the fillets will put water into the grain of the fish flesh, and the fish will not store anywhere near as well, it certainly will not freeze as well.

cheers

[finga]

Well all you fela's are making assumptions here.
Charlie has to catch some fish first before he need a cleaning table. ;)
Yeah, I know. the cook told just this morning

If it's of any use I have an old foldup aluminium ambo gerni here you can have Charlie.
You could bung the sink on top and fold it all up and lean against the shed when you don't need it.
As a side note Charlie the little machine turns up end of next week so the week after would be an ideal time to do something with that keg, drink coffee, eat anzac biccies, contemplate life in general and see if we can get the gismo to work.

[revs57]

Old boot has raised some good issues with respect to the type of timber, but as i said, good ole' ply seems to work a treat.

as far as washing fillets and its effect on fillet quality - have to disagree there Old boot - washing fillets in the water the fish is caught in is no problem what so ever. I found a stray pack of lipper that we caught last May at the swains the other day. The fish were bled, chilled in a slurry, filleted, washed in salt water, nicely packed with no air gaps between the flesha nd the plastic and snap frozen - I was amazed at the quality of the flesh. It was as good as the fillets we ate fresh and those recently frozen - the issue with flesh deterioration has to do with the bacteria enzymes, how the fish is packed and stored and the temperature stored at. Stop the rot, keep the air out and keep fish cold, cold - but not so cold they get freezer burnt and the flesh is as good as.

cheers

Rhys

[charleville]

I am reminded after showing the following photo in a separate post yesterday that I have never closed the loop in this thread after building what I shall call Stage 1 of my fish cleaning table. So here goes ...


Stage 1 is just a basic welded galvanised steel frame with wheels on one end and "handles" at both ends of the table and the stainless steel sink on top. The handles are useful both as handles in pulling the contraption around the yard but they are also useful to hang stuff on.

The drain hole of the sink is connected to a PVC pipe of about a metre or so which I swing around so that water and muck in the sink drains into a garden and gets covered afterwards with mulch or grass clippings.

The table is at sitting height. I use a large plastic cutting board on top of the flat part of the stainless steel sink as the actual cutting surface.

http://img.skitch.com/20100421-kfgddkbj9qhpq8rud2e3y6rs7k.preview.jpg (http://skitch.com/charleville2/nrphc/skitched-327)
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I made the table in August but stick welding tends to be a winter pastime for me because leather aprons, long welding gloves etc become a bit tedious in hot weather so as the warmer months crept towards us last year, I postponed any further work and I have yet to finish adding the extras to the table.

Nonetheless, lots of fish have been cleaned on the table and the practical use of it has confirmed that a few extras would be handy. These include:-

(a) a flat rigid cover for the whole thing as a few bird droppings do land on it because it is permanently stored outside out of view but exposed to the sky, trees etc.

My intent is to add some mid-height handles to the end to aid wheeling the table around but also those handles would then become part of the support on which to rest the cover in a way that it would become a handy side table whilst the table is in use. I envisage using something like the small size corrugated steel sheeting enclosed in a frame of galvanised angle as the cover.

(b) a couple of non-obtrusive shelves under the table would be handy to house the plastic cutting board and my tool box of fish cleaning/filleting tools and detergents, scourers etc.

The welded joints on the table were painted with cold galvanising paint and after several months there is no sign of rust. I don't expect that rust will be a problem with the construction. When finally completed, I intend to give the frame a coat or two of something like a hammertone paint just for appearance sake. Not that that really matters as the table is hidden from view at most times.


So far, the table has been a great success and has served me well.


I shall post pictures of the final product when I get motivated to finish its construction. Nonetheless, so far, it is a beauty as a fish cleaning table.

8-)



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[finga]

Oi Charlie. I noticed waaay up the top what you use for making burley.
Have I ever told you about the burley maker I made??

It's an electric garden composter that cost $10 at a garbage sale and I put a larger shoot on it to feed the fish heads etc into.
Works great and when you wash it over the petunia's and they'll grow like nobodies business.
It's actually quite clean to use.

[charleville]

Oi Charlie. I noticed waaay up the top what you use for making burley.
Have I ever told you about the burley maker I made??

It's an electric garden composter that cost $10 at a garbage sale and I put a larger shoot on it to feed the fish heads etc into.
Works great and when you wash it over the petunia's and they'll grow like nobodies business.
It's actually quite clean to use.


Thanks Finga. So do you use the end product as berley or fertiliser for your garden?

Most of my fish heads etc get buried in the garden. I don't use berley much these days.

[Horse]

What a great idea. It beats stealing the wifes kenwood to process them (I cant take too many more blows to the head)

I wonder if I could fit a petrol powered mulcher up on the bow and just feed in everything as I catch it. It would put a smile on my face every time a Grinner crossed my path

[finga]

Thanks Finga. So do you use the end product as berley or fertiliser for your garden?

Most of my fish heads etc get buried in the garden. I don't use berley much these days.
Depends matey.
Most gets put around trees but we always have a few 2l milk bottles full of burley for Evans Head.
We just take the top off and clip it to the top of the anchor chain with a loop of Paramatta rope (Telecom rope) and a dog clip.
It doesn't hurt the back pocket so bad when a Noah grabs the burley bucket when we use the milk bottle.

The larger shoot on the burley muncher was easy to do as you just have to get rid of the silly little safety slot at the bottom of the big shoot.