[AT] same old iron, more generations using it

Dean Vinson dean at vinsonfarm.net
Wed Jan 16 16:54:26 PST 2013


Great story, John, thanks!

Dean Vinson
Dayton, Ohio


-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of jtchall at nc.rr.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 7:48 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: [AT] same old iron, more generations using it

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
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