Prasad, N., Kumar, K.K., & Bhagat, M.L. 2006 Design and development of power operated roller type lac scraper.. Agricultural Mechanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America 37(1): 35-37.

Notes: Lac is the hardened resin secreted by the tiny lac insect [Kerria lacca]. Lac insects thrive only on certain trees called lac hosts. Butea monosperma (Palas), Zizyphus mauritiana (Ber) and Schleichera oleosa (Kusum) are the major lac hosts used in India. Lac cultivation involves five major operations which are pruning, inoculation, used up broodlac (phunki) removal, harvesting and lac scraping. Mostly, lac cultivation operations are carried out manually with the aid of locally manufactured traditional tools. Manual lac scraping is a very slow and tedious process. In one method, farmers sit on the ground in a group and scrape lac with the traditional tools like a small scraping knife (dauli) and sickle. In another method, farmers remove lac encrustation by beating lac sticks with bamboo sticks. One person scrapes 5-10 kg of lac in a day. As scraping is done on the ground, unwanted foreign materials like sand, soil, and wooden twigs find their way into scraped lac, reducing the price to farmers and creating problems during lac processing in industries. In order to increase the output and reduce the drudgery of lac production, a simple power operated roller type lac scraper was designed and developed. The machine consists of a scraper, separation screen, feed hopper, drive mechanism and machine frame. The machine scrapes lac under the action of shear and compressive forces. One person operates the machine and scrapes approximately 13.5 kg lac stick h SUP -1 with a scraping efficiency of 95%.