personal i would forget the idea of a second hand extractor as they always go for more than they are worth on fleabay, so lets try a new one
so we are either going to buy a plastic or a stainless steel one so plastic first
this is from Thornes its £170 for a table top jobbie, i dont like it because it is small and exspensive for a bucket with a tap and a frame, but for a small producer this is also one of the better units on the market, but it is just a starting point
the next step up is bigger plastic universal Manual Lightweight Polythene Tangential at £250 now this is more like it large enough to handly any thing four beeks can throw at it at a sensible price (£60ish each) brilliant
next on line is the daddy extractors, these boys start from the simple stainless steel tub to the all signing and dancing .
so lets start at the bottom range at thornes at £500 its a lot of money and a very big investment but a four way split is still only a reasonble £125, it comes with out a motor but we can always buy one at a later date and they just bolt onto it, same with the leg kits and other stuff, worst case do as i do and unscrew the handle and put an electric on the spindle instead, lovely job and no outlay.
if you wanted to you can go to the £1,000 models if you want but i see that as a waste of time and money.
untill it was nicked i used to use a german made extractor, look on fleabay (germany) and they are better quality but vat free ( minus 17.5%) and cheaper some times to , ( mine was roughly 25% cheaper than the thornes version and we had a lovel long weekend in Berlin too)
i brought the elctric motor a year later when i could afford it, now i have less hives so i just a home butchered jobbie that does six frames at a time, each set of frames takes roughly 10 minutes to load , unload and natter and drink tea and empty honey from ( men are worse than woman)
one average i have five hives so thats roughly three supers average 30 frames a hive times five thats 300 frames, thirty spins, a days work once a year that if i have spent another £500 would still be a days work just slightly easier. another way to do it would be to split the honey collection over two weekends instead but with a smaller extractor.
the biggest thing to remember is that far to many beeks make there honey collection, proccessing a feat of endurance , were as i make mine a party, we have a honey based food going on, buckets of tea then buckets of booze, a bbq, depending on the weather, kids running round and just generaly a fun time as it makes the day easier to deal with, we do the same when we proccess apples for juice too.
i used to work with one beek that would barricade himself in his shed for the whole period until every frame was finished and it was just not fun and hard work,
use and buy what you can afford as when you sell it of it will not deappreciation that much , but most of all have fun doing it,
hedgey