I managed to get a used Paper Shreader (Fellowes P400c-2) as my mom killed it and she picked up a new one before I had a chance to see what it needed fixed, so... DONOR TIME!
Big ol' electric motor, probably turns something like 5,000 rpm, decent enough torque it can eat paperclips and cd's with the gear reduction, and runs 110v, 47w. Some gears. Shreading bars. Plastic housing. An 8PDT switch (fwd / rev). A double pole micro switch (so it only runs on it's special trashcan), and another smaller microswitch single pole (that ran the automatic mode, not sure what to have it do now).
Now they're cheap in manufacturing, so it's set up so that you can put the fwd / rev switch in whichever setting you want it to run, then tap the microswitch to fire it up.
Nice. So I've already got all the components wired as I need for a prop, just need to rip off the shreader bars, maybe a little wire stretching, and decide what I want this to become.
Man, what to build...
If you ever have access to a paper shreader being thrown out, jump all over that! Trust me, you want it.