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My uncle’s amazing corn shelling machine Login/Join 
Baroque Bloke
Picture of Pipe Smoker
posted
My uncle Clay had an amazing machine in his barn – it shelled field corn. Manually driven by a hand crank, my uncle would drop in an ear of dried field corn. Immediately, a stream of kernels would emerge from a chute and drop into a bucket below the chute. When virtually all of the kernels had been stripped, the stripped cob would emerge from another chute, and drop into another bucket.

I was little kid when I last saw it, but here’s what I remember of it. There were two counter-rotating circular disks of steel or cast iron, on a common axis, each 2 or 3 feet in diameter, slightly conical. The apexes of the cones were, at most, an inch apart. The facing surfaces had many short protrusions to knock off the kernels.

Most of the mechanism was covered by sheet steel and castings, so I don’t know what else was in there. Whatever it was, I’m awed that it could retain the ear until nearly all of the kernels were stripped, then send the cob out a separate chute. An antique, but wonderful, machine.



Serious about crackers
 
Posts: 8856 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
At Jacob's Well
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Was it something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhxD5cKnc4


J


Rak Chazak Amats
 
Posts: 5281 | Location: SW Missouri | Registered: May 08, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Baroque Bloke
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quote:
Originally posted by jaaron11:
Was it something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhxD5cKnc4

Basically similar, except my uncle’s was all steel and iron. Thanks for that video!



Serious about crackers
 
Posts: 8856 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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quote:
Originally posted by jaaron11:
Was it something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhxD5cKnc4


I’m familiar with a smaller version of that. Clamped to a trough. It’s fascinating for the first 45 minutes. Then my arms were tired. Smile

They can be quite pricy in the antique stores.

For homemade engineering, I was very taken with Granddads butter bean sheller. Mostly because I hated shelling the damn things. It was, alas, too rough with the product for Grandmas taste, so back to wash basins of butter beans and watching The Guiding Light in the hot afternoons.

I still hate butter beans.


--
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Posts: 2362 | Location: Roswell, GA | Registered: March 10, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Muzzle flash
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I was always fascinated by my grandfather's cream separator. That thing could really spin!

flashguy




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Posts: 27902 | Location: Dallas, TX | Registered: May 08, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Grew up on small farm and my Dad had a corn mill where we ground both grits and corn bread. We had a sheller with a gas engine which my Dad would not let any of us touch until we were 12 or so to keep us from filleting our hands.

I was driving a tractor at 10 but could not use the sheller. When he was gone for any length of time he took the spark plug out.

That thing could do bushels of corn before you blinked your eyes. Shelled corn came off directly on conveyor belt to go to the grinder. There was metal divider on the conveyor you used to send to right stones.

It was fascinating.


Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies.

Gene Hill
 
Posts: 626 | Registered: July 12, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My great-uncle used one like this at his dairy farm.
Antique corn sheller



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Posts: 2863 | Location: SE WI | Registered: October 07, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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How about this one?

International corn sheller


ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
 
Posts: 4810 | Location: SWMO | Registered: October 20, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Gramdpa had one.
 
Posts: 1195 | Location: Southern ,Mi. | Registered: October 17, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do No Harm,
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Yep. I wore out my arms on one too.




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Posts: 11446 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
:^)
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Used one on the farm, amazingly fun though, like any other farm task becomes drudgery.

We'd then take the corn and run trough an old supermarket coffee mill on the coarsest setting to make cracked corn for our chicken feed.

Ours was all cast iron, after a while, when the handle cracked the local welder. He's was an elderly German fellow who left Germany when Hitler came to power, such an interesting man, stories of Weimar Germany were fascinating... I digress.

Billy


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Posts: 7177 | Registered: March 19, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
:^)
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quote:
Originally posted by BillyBonesNY:
Used one on the farm, amazingly fun though, like any other farm task becomes drudgery.


We'd then take the corn and run trough an old supermarket coffee mill on the coarsest setting to make cracked corn for our chicken feed.

Ours was all cast iron, after a while, when the handle cracked the local welder. He's was an elderly German fellow who left Germany when Hitler came to power, such an interesting man, stories of Weimar Germany were fascinating... I digress.

I always wanted to hook it up to an electric motor.
It would have been much more fun.

Billy


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Posts: 7177 | Registered: March 19, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
teacher of history
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My grandad had one and used it to prepare feed for the cows and chickens.
 
Posts: 5610 | Location: Central Illinois | Registered: March 04, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Waiting for Hachiko
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We had one on our farm,kept it in the building called the corn crib. Shelled thousands of ears of corn in my youth .

I don't know what happened to it, as after I left home, the building was torn down.

I wish I had it now.


美しい犬
 
Posts: 6673 | Location: Near the Metropolis of Tightsqueeze, Va | Registered: February 18, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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While living in Iowa many of the Amish farms around us still used thisctype of corn sheller. Some were bigger and it was a dusty operation.


Jim
 
Posts: 1344 | Location: Southern Black Hills | Registered: September 14, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Constable
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Used one as a kid on the farm in NJ. I wouldn't want to stick my arm in there while it was turning!

I could easily shell a 5 gal bucket of corn in 3-4 minutes.
 
Posts: 7074 | Location: Craig, MT | Registered: December 17, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Victim of Life's
Circumstances
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Years ago I was at a Fl panhandle flea mkt and there was a farm market selling pecans. The background noise was a rhythmic thump, thump, thump. It was a belt driven contraption that cracked the pecans and then the cracked pecans were put in a lunch bag sized brown paper bag for retail. Sold like hotcakes and that machine was the key.


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Posts: 4683 | Location: Sunnyside of Louisville | Registered: July 04, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
chickenshit
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quote:
Originally posted by SigJacket:
quote:
Originally posted by jaaron11:
Was it something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhxD5cKnc4


I’m familiar with a smaller version of that. Clamped to a trough. It’s fascinating for the first 45 minutes. Then my arms were tired. Smile

They can be quite pricy in the antique stores.

For homemade engineering, I was very taken with Granddads butter bean sheller. Mostly because I hated shelling the damn things. It was, alas, too rough with the product for Grandmas taste, so back to wash basins of butter beans and watching The Guiding Light in the hot afternoons.

I still hate butter beans.


Holy cats! I did the same thing with my grandmother except it was Days of our Lives. She referred to the Soap Operas as "her shows".

Thanks for the memory.


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Posts: 8000 | Location: East Central FL | Registered: January 05, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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