[AT] same old iron, more generations using it

Recentjester at aol.com Recentjester at aol.com
Tue Jan 15 21:29:36 PST 2013


Be nice to see some pics of it
 
 
In a message dated 1/15/2013 6:51:47 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
jtchall at nc.rr.com writes:

Our  weather has been extremely warm(for this time of year) the past few 
days. It  was around 70 Sat. afternoon, making it an ideal day to play with 
some rusty  old iron. Back in the fall we cut a load of corn to run through 
the family’s  corn shredder. Since the weather was turning out so nice Sat., I 
decided to  put some shop work on hold and have a little fun. We pulled out 
the shredder,  which hadn’t been used in 6-8 years, and gave it a quick 
greasing. It was late  in the day so we left Iron Annie (that’s what dad’s 
10-20 McCormick-Deering is  referred to, it’s the normal power source for the 
shredder) under the shed and  opted for something with electric start and 
rubber tires. We pulled into a  fallow field and set up without much hassle—the 
drive belt has to run over  idler rollers with guides so lining it up is 
more fun than just a straight or  twisted belt. Everything ran flawlessly, no 
small feat when you are running  100 year old equipment. The best part is we 
were able to add 2 more  generations of my family to the list of folks that 
have run this machine.  While my son and cousin are too small/young to feed 
the machine, they have  gotten tall enough to throw the corn up onto the 
feed table.


The  corn shredder (husker-shredder if you want to get technical) was 
bought used  in the 1920’s by my grandfather. It is an IHC machine that went out 
of  production by the early teens. Researching it years ago I found this  
particular design dates to the 1880’s. It is a very well built machine that is 
 far more wood than metal. A lot of the wood joints are tongue and groove. 
The  grease cups are cast iron, not stamped sheetmetal. Most everything on 
it is in  original condition, although a few grease cups have been replaced 
with  fittings, the elevator is a combination of parts we salvaged of a junk 
machine  and a little of our own design, and the 2 large idler pulleys on 
the front  were robbed off the junk machine as well. The elevator was missing 
when my  grandfather bought it, they always caught the corn in bushel 
baskets. The  original idler pulleys were destroyed due to an uncle failing to 
grease the  machine. There is supposed toe be a small elevator that catches the 
corn that  falls through the husking mechanism (think of it as a tailings 
elevator on a  combine). We don’t have all the pieces for it and have not 
been able to find a  machine to copy. We’ve never had a goal to restore it, 
just to keep it  useable.

John  Hall
_______________________________________________
AT mailing  list
http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at




More information about the AT mailing list