[AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really O) corn sheller

[charliehill]

About 15 miles from my place there is an old man and his even older father 
that run a small independent feed mill.
They have an old rig of some sort that I think is maybe a combination 
sheller and hammer mill or grinder mounted on a 40's or 50's vintage truck. 
I can't remember now what kind of truck but I think IH.  They no longer run 
it on the road.  It sits under a shed and they use it as a stationary mill. 
I need to stop by there some day and check them out and maybe take some 
pictures.  I bet I've passed by them 1000 times but never had a reason to 
stop in.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Beal Gleason" <farmerbeal at aol.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] OT I'm getting older are you? (Really O) corn sheller


> In the early 50s we had a MM sheller mounted on Diamond T 2Ton truck.
> IT had a 2 speed rear axel. We rigged a block on a hinge on the vacuum
> shifter so we could flip over and block the axel from shifting into
> high gear.                                     Then then we put a 2"
> solid shaft in the drive line right behind the cab about 2'long
> mounted on 2 pillow block  bearings with a pulley mounted between
> them. Then we put a belt up to the pulley on the sheller with
> tightener so that when we got ready to shell we could flip block over,
> tighten the belt, shift the rear end into high an we were ready to go.
> We had the pulleys sized so the engine ran about 40 miles / hour when
> the seller was at operating speed.  When we were ready to hit the road
> we loosened the belt, fliped the block and we were off.
>
> WE shelled several thousand bu. corn over several years and it worked
> great.
>
> Farmerbeal
>
>
> On Jan 30, 2010, at 2:17 AM, drupert at seanet.com wrote:
>
>> ....
>>> We still harvested ear corn fairly late. I just saw a new ear corn
>>> crib going up last week.
>> ...>
>>> --
>>> Have you hugged your horses today?
>>>
>>> Francis Robinson
>>> aka "farmer"
>>> Central Indiana USA
>>> robinson46176 at gmail.com
>>>
>> The above two sentances in Farmers' response of a couple of days ago
>> have
>> reminded me of a question/curiosity that I've had for some time so,
>> if I
>> ever expect to get some answers, I better ask it.  Question:  How do
>> you
>> first remember corn being sold?
>>
>> We left the farm in Southern Illinois in 1954.  At that time, of
>> course,
>> everyone was still harvesting corn with Pickers.  The corn that was
>> wanted
>> for feed or for later sale was stored in a Crib.  The corn that was
>> sold
>> went to the Elevator on the cob.  The Elevator had a big sheller that
>> could handle Wagon/Truck loads as fast as they could be driven in,
>> lifted,
>> dumped, driven out and the cycle repeated.  I don't recall ever
>> seeing a
>> sheller on, or going to, a farm except for the small hand cranked jobs
>> used for making chicken feed.
>>
>> Now fast forward forty years.  In the early nineties I was making
>> frequent
>> trips back to the Midwest.  Across the Northern parts of Illinois and
>> Indiana I started noticing that many of the old Cribs were still
>> standing
>> but that they were much taller than those in Southern Illinois and
>> they
>> had a huge Cupola on top ... what/why were they so different I
>> wondered.
>> After pondering this for several years I just happened to strike up a
>> conversation with a farmer in Northern Indiana, maybe fifteen miles
>> from
>> the Michigan line.  His farm had one of these "tall Cribs."  He told
>> me
>> they were far more than the cribs I remembered from the Southern
>> part of
>> the state and that they were really more like the Elevator I
>> remembered
>> only on a smaller scale.  His Crib/Elevator was built in the late
>> thirties
>> from a kit that John Deere sold.  A wagon/truck could be driven down
>> the
>> center and the mechanism was there to lift the front end and dump
>> the corn
>> into a "Gutter" that then carried the corn to one side of the Aisle
>> where
>> an endless vertical roller chain with "Cups" attached carried the
>> corn to
>> the top (i.e., up in the Cupola) where a Diverter would direct the
>> corn to
>> the Crib on either side.  This farmer said that when he wanted to
>> sell he
>> would hire a custom sheller who had a ton and a half truck with a
>> sheller
>> and International engine on back.  He said he had been farming since
>> after
>> the War and had always sold his corn shelled.
>>
>> I know this is just trivia but I am curious anyway as to how corn
>> was sold
>> - back before we started getting older - to the Elevators in different
>> parts of the country.  For those of you whose memory does not
>> stretch back
>> to before Corn Heads/Harvesters came along and got well established
>> I am
>> sure this is "real" trivia.
>>
>> Dudley
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> AT mailing list
>> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at