This project has been a long time in the making and I'm glad I have the energy to finally start on it. A lot of nights I've been laying in bed going through ideas and designs how to build this.
I have an old fashion hand crank corn sheller my wife uses to shell Indian corn and put it in glass jars as decorations and sells them along the road with pumpkins, corn stalks, and gourds. We have a few animals I'd like to make my own feed for, and thought it'd be interesting to do some demos at tractor shows of it.
For those of you with out an agriculture back ground a corn sheller, takes the kernels off the cob to make animal feed. You shovel corn onto the tray and it falls into the box where some gears(powered by your arm, or a pulley) will pinch, the cob and take the kernels off, the kernels will fall below into a bucket, and the empty cob will shoot out of the front of the box.
Most of these smaller units stayed inside the corn crib. As farms got bigger there were towable or truck mounted types.
I wanted to make mine towable for easy in and out storage and for taking to shows.
I built a mini steel wheel buck wagon awhile ago. The frame is very simular to a hit and miss engine cart. I was going to use the same plans and ideas to make the corn sheller portable, but worried the sheller might be top heavy and tip. In another post other members gave me ideas on to mount the sheller on the back of the wagon, but I wanted a separate unit.
As of right now this is what I came up with. I wanted something that looked simple and home made from "back in the day" but nothing cobbled. I decided to mount the unit side ways to be less likely to tip over sideways. I'll have the base be wood and have removable wooden crates to catch the corn and cobs.
If I really wanted to be fancy I can have a long belt off from it to my 110 to run, or my buddy has a cub cadet with a rear p.t.o I can add a shaft and 2nd pulley too. I'll see and think about it more.
I was also thinking about changing the wheels with mini steel wagon wheels , or tricycle spoke wheels to make it more age appropriate.
I have an old fashion hand crank corn sheller my wife uses to shell Indian corn and put it in glass jars as decorations and sells them along the road with pumpkins, corn stalks, and gourds. We have a few animals I'd like to make my own feed for, and thought it'd be interesting to do some demos at tractor shows of it.
For those of you with out an agriculture back ground a corn sheller, takes the kernels off the cob to make animal feed. You shovel corn onto the tray and it falls into the box where some gears(powered by your arm, or a pulley) will pinch, the cob and take the kernels off, the kernels will fall below into a bucket, and the empty cob will shoot out of the front of the box.
Most of these smaller units stayed inside the corn crib. As farms got bigger there were towable or truck mounted types.
I wanted to make mine towable for easy in and out storage and for taking to shows.
I built a mini steel wheel buck wagon awhile ago. The frame is very simular to a hit and miss engine cart. I was going to use the same plans and ideas to make the corn sheller portable, but worried the sheller might be top heavy and tip. In another post other members gave me ideas on to mount the sheller on the back of the wagon, but I wanted a separate unit.
As of right now this is what I came up with. I wanted something that looked simple and home made from "back in the day" but nothing cobbled. I decided to mount the unit side ways to be less likely to tip over sideways. I'll have the base be wood and have removable wooden crates to catch the corn and cobs.
If I really wanted to be fancy I can have a long belt off from it to my 110 to run, or my buddy has a cub cadet with a rear p.t.o I can add a shaft and 2nd pulley too. I'll see and think about it more.
I was also thinking about changing the wheels with mini steel wagon wheels , or tricycle spoke wheels to make it more age appropriate.