Corn Shelling Machine

[CBW1999]

Thinking about using a corn furnace to heat the place. I have enough land to grow my own fuel however, processing corn cobs to just the kernels is another thisng. I have been trying to find a machine to do this. I have only found "antiques", small volume units, or something from overseas.

Any ideas on building one?

Thanks!

 

[WarrenF]

You can burn the cob and all....at least we did when I was growing up. Of course we did not have a corn burning furnace....simply a stove.

 

[Renovator]

Could you grind the whole cob course and make it work. Just a thought. Also some New Idea pickers had shellers on them. Farmers have modified them to shell out of corn cribs.
Renovator

 

[Robert_in_NY]

How many acres are you looking at planting? You can find decent old combines with corn head for under $2k. They are too small for most farms now but for a 50-100 acre farm they are still a good size. I bought a JD 3300 with 2 row corn head and 10' grain head for $1k and it was in good condition. The grain head needed some work but the combine ran and was still being used. The guy sold it because he bought a class larger. I havested 40 acres of oats with it that first year and was going to harvest corn with it last year but I got hurt and the combine ended up sitting in the barn. This year I have 40 acres of corn growing and will be harvesting that unless we get flooded with rain. Then I might have to hire someone with a RWA equipped harvester.

Either way the combine will shell the corn as it harvest it and are fairly inexpensive.

 

[BHD]

look on eBay, antique stores, farm auctions, they made hand sheller for corn for shelling the seed corn when they used open populated seed, instead of hybrids

corn shellers - Google Image Search

apparently one can still buy some new, about half way down on the page.
Grinders, grist or feed mills and Corn Shellers at Strombergs

 

[BHD]

the basic workings of a corn sheller, is a disk of rotating disk with nubs or protrusions on it and a tapered channel that guides the cob into the disk working the kernels off the ear, and usaly dropping the kernels in one chute or box and the cob else were.
basic cross section view of the small hand powered unit and the larger box type units,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/T1838E/T1838E14.GIF

 

[schmism]

CORN/MAIZE THRESHING MACHINE,CORN SELLER MZ-268 - Trade Leads - Zhaoqing Fengxiang Foodmachinery Co.,Ltd

the problem with most of the above listed shellers is, as far as i can tell, they are required to be hand fed. (other than the larger tractor versions)

id want to see the inside of a modern working combine and see if i couldnt duplicate the method/design it uses.

 

[BHD]

a basic cross section of a thresher, the harvesting section of a combine,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/T1838E/T1838E11.GIF

here is of a Japanese thresher, cross section, no cleaner on it,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/T1838E/T1838E12.GIF

Low-volume huller & thresher designs from Al Dong

Google patents, search for thresher, combine harvester, harvester, grain, cleaner separator or combinations of the words,
Google Patents

your basic thresher cylinder, is a round cage that has "rasp bars' on the out side, (kinda looking like a off set angle iron {1/2 leg x 2" leg}, with diagonal grooves on it) to beat the grain as it hits it and is pushed through the space between it and the, "concave" a cage with bars that jsut clear the cylinder and the space is adjusttable between the two for crop clearance,

for some specialty crops there is what is called a spike tooth cylinder and it like it says had teeth on it beat the grain out of the heads, the majority of the grain fall through the concave, (on to what was called a PAN or augers),
the straw is kicked out behind the cylinder, (there is usaly a "beater" that spins with a few blades on it that help knock the grain out of the straw, the straw continuous on to the "straw walkers" which are saw toothed screened U shaped troughs that have a saw tooth (large tooth) look on top that work on a crank that makes it look like there jumping up and down (but there balanced on the crank one is going up one is going down, but they finish shaking the grain out of the straw,

then the grain slides down the troughs under the walkers and off the pan on to the "sieves" screens, that shake back and forth with a fan under the screens that blow the chaff out and the grain falls through and (deepening on how it is set up, possibly thought a second or near the back a courser screen and the grain and chaff that come off of this area is re threshed, and the grain that come out of the "first" or if there is a chaffer (courser second screen) the clean grain comes out from there,

the cleaner part is basically jsut a fanning mill, the old combines had solid screens (one size of screen) jsut like a cleaner, Modern have adjustable sieves, a special screen that can be adjusted for the grain type,

 

[rambler]

Minneapolis Moline made the favored corn shellers from 1940-1970's. Look up a MM D corn sheller. They use a cage, not the combine setup. More efficient for corn.

Sell for about $200 around here, use 30 hp or so......

--->Paul

 

[Gary Fowler]

We had a corn sheller just like the one BHD posted the link to and it worked well. You could modify it to turn slowly with an electric motor by putting a large pulley on the sheller and with the gear reduction a 1/2 HP motor would probably do the trick It needs to turn about 60 rpm, but turning by hand will shell a lot of corn and give you some exercise too.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I bought a well used part of a John Deere #10 feed mill. it had the hammers and chamber and a chute to feed it. the man that had it enlarged the concave holes a bit to shell corn but it also grinds the cob in with the feed. A friend wanted it for his furnace, but switched to an outside boiler.

 

[BHD]

here is a good cross section of a **00 or a **20 series John Deere combine,
approx 1970 through 1980's or so,
http://www.littlegreenmagazine.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/LG_combine.gif

the explanation of the system,
How Does it Work?

concave and cyclinder
http://www.combinefabs.co.uk/images/concave2_02.jpg

http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/B1190/B1190-22b.gif

 

[CBW1999]

Thank you for all of the great information. It certainly helps to have all of the knowledge out there shared. I look forward to any continued posts as time goes on.

It looks like I still have a lot of planning and learning ahead of me on this project (if I can even make it work).

Should I find something to work, I will certainly keep you all updated!

Thaks again!

 

[OldMcDonald]

Bumping up this thread instead of starting a new one - partly so that everyone knows it is not necessary to repeat the information already posted, but I will repeat my situation. Here in Portugal there is absolutely no market whatsoever in used equipment. Buying from another country is not possible, partly due to transport costs, partly import problems, and not least because this is a peasant economy and I am posting on behalf of neighbours as well as myself. Photos and drawings are all very well, but dimensions are needed to be able to make anything that stands a chance of working, especially when I have never seen a corn sheller.

Just about everybody grows a patch of corn, anything from a quarter acre up to maybe two acres. It is pulled and shelled by hand. That is a lot of work for old people. I am past retirement age, and just about the youngest around these parts. I felt that if I could make a sheller, preferably hand cranked or motor driven rather than pto, then I could save my neighbours a lot of work. Hand feeding the sheller is no problem.

Can anybody give me good enough leads to at least attempt to make one?