TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff! 1/16/2024

[953 nut 55,191]

Corn sheller

 

 

The mechanical corn sheller was first patented in 1839. It is a freestanding hand-operated machine that removed individual kernels of corn by pulling the cob through a series of metal-toothed cylinders which stripped the kernels off the cob.

Lester Denison, an inventor from Sayville, Conn., patented a corn sheller in 1839, and his machine is credited with starting an industry that at one time numbered several hundred manufacturers. Whole corn cobs are fed in. They are pulled between two toothed wheels, usually made of metal. Each wheel spins the opposite direction of the other. The teeth pull the kernels off the cob until there are no kernels left. The kernels fall out through a screen into a container (such as a bucket) placed underneath the machine. The cob is then ejected out, since it cannot pass through the screen. Some models have a "walker", similar to a threshing machine or combine, to take the cobs out.

After harvesting corn, it would be stored in a corn crib for later use. Months later as the need arose for feed or cornmeal it would be removed from the crib and husked then shelled.

My grandfather had a sheller much like the one pictured below. It was attached to a small treadmill by a flat belt. He had a nanny (female goat) that would operate the treadmill. She was so accustom to working the treadmill that once you lead her to the thrashing room she would hop up on the treadmill and stand there awaiting your call.

As long as corn cobs were being fed through the sheller she would continue to walk, when I stopped to get another basket of corn she would stop too. Shelling corn was one of my Saturday chores for several years, that old nanny and I were a team.

[oliver2-44 9,739]

On our farm there was the remains of a rotting/falling down log cabin corn crib.  The corn crib had a lean too shed on one side that was part of a hog pen.   

Many years ago I pulled this IHC corn sheller out of it. It had a hand crank handle on the other side. The inner cogged looking wheel should have a old style round leather belt (like treadle sewing machines used) and it went down to that small lower pulley which is a blower that would blow dust out of the kernels as they fell.  Although rusty, I was able to free it up with penetrating oil and it works as it should.  It is missing a tray on the top that would help feed corn into the Sheller 

 

The IHC can still be faintly read on it. 

 

There was also this Red Chief hand sheller.  It was rusted solid.  A few years ago I freeded it up with a lot of heat from a rosebud torch.  Then I went ahead and blasted and painted it since that ruined the rusty patina.  

The round wheel pictured below has this cast on it.

Gaissler's Corn Sheller Mf'GD by Brinly Hardy Co Incorporated Louisville Kentucky   PAT Nov 26 (18)98 and Nov 28 (18)88

This is the same Brinly Hardy Co that makes implements for our garden tractors today.

In the 1920's there were four clapboard 2 room Share Cropper cabin's on the lower part of our farm,  They were around a common well with a windmill.  

The log corn crib was a little ways from the 4 cabins. 

My mom says the land owner at that time owned roughly 500 acres and our farm was part of that. He leased the land out to those tenants to farm on shares.   

When Dad bought the farm in 1948, He moved those cabin's and put 2 of them together with a large room between them to make a 5 room house. 

It was lived in by hired help who worked with dad on the Grade A Dairy he had at that time.  

As a young teenager I helped dad sheetrock and rewire the inside of it to use as just a rent house. 

Hope I didn't get too far off you Sheller thread 953.

Edited January 16 by oliver2-44

[953 nut 55,191]

1 hour ago, oliver2-44 said:

Hope I didn't get too far off you Sheller thread 953

This is exactly the type of interaction I had hoped this series of postings would generate.     

The small hand cranked corn sheller you have is much like one our tractor club would set up at shows and the county fair along with a hand cranked corn meal grinder. The little children had a ball shelling and grinding corn, we just had to watch to be sure on little fingers get caught in the gears. Good to know that the manufacturer of the sheller is still in business.

[Beap52 809]

I was going to post a picture of hand sheller mom has mounted on a post in her barn but haven't taken time to get out there to take a photo--thus this late posting.  She uses it for hulling black walnuts.  It seems to work best before the hulls are dry.  Just feed them in and the hulls are stripped off like kernels of corn  We used to put them in the driveway and the hulls would come off after being driven over.   Mom usually just works a few buckets full each fall and the sheller works fine.

[953 nut 55,191]

21 minutes ago, Beap52 said:

  We used to put them in the driveway and the hulls would come off after being driven over.

There is a black walnut tree outside my woodwork shop and every fall I end up driving over some of them. The squirrels seem to appreciate my help in hulling therm!