Hammer Mill

Navajo350

Member
Anybody know much about the Gehl #41 Hammer Mill? Are they pretty good? Is a hammer mill a hammer mill? The one I am looking at is complete with cyclone, plumbing, and 3 screens.

Bob

Also, I am hand picking my smaller patch of corn. In the old days when they picked by hand, how did they get rid of the husk before shelling? Did they just throw the ear into the sheller husk and all?
 
(quoted from post at 15:31:08 09/05/18) When I ground ear corn for the milk cows the husk and all went into the hammer mill to make feed. Not a problem.

Ok, thanks. So you would store the ear whole, husk and all, then feed it to the cows when needed? What moisture content did you store the whole ear at?
 
Ear corn moisture will change with the weather. It should be stored in a crib where air can circulate through it. I pick ear corn when its down to about 25% moisture but I don't use it until spring so it has
the cold air of winter blowing through it to dry it some more. If you grind it at too high a moisture content the ground grain will mold unless used up pretty quick. I never measured moisture for corn in a
crib after sitting all winter but I would guess it would settle out in the high teens for average.
 
My dad had the Gehl agency 50 years ago, I think the #41 is a 10" mill. They are hammer mills and they are good ones. I think I still have a couple of NOS screens around here.
 
A couple of older neighbors, now long gone, told about picking corn by hand. There would be a crew, with some walking along picking, and throwing ears on to a wagon. There would be a crew on the wagon with husking "pegs", or husking gloves, husking the ears.

A hammermill can be very versatile. When my wife had a few pigs and chickens I experimented with speeds and screens to grind, or crack corn, and roasted soybeans. The only problem with running the mill slow to just get cracked feed, was the blower wouldn't develop enough suction to clear the mill. So it did take some experimenting.
 
(quoted from post at 18:21:16 09/05/18) A couple of older neighbors, now long gone, told about picking corn by hand. There would be a crew, with some walking along picking, and throwing ears on to a wagon. There would be a crew on the wagon with husking "pegs", or husking gloves, husking the ears.

A hammermill can be very versatile. When my wife had a few pigs and chickens I experimented with speeds and screens to grind, or crack corn, and roasted soybeans. The only problem with running the mill slow to just get cracked feed, was the blower wouldn't develop enough suction to clear the mill. So it did take some experimenting.

Good story. I am kind of at that point; mostly everything by hand for now. I just have plows, a drag, and a couple of old tractors. I guess it will help me appreciate the equipment when I get it.
 
Dad had a two row mounted corn picker on a WD.I guess the picker was what they called a snapper. Sometimes you would get two foot of stalk with the ear. It all went into the Wetmore hammer mill for dairy feed.
 
My dad used to pick corn by hand with a team of horses on a wagon. A good team would walk along unpicked row and respond to voice
commands. The wagon would be equipped with a backboard to throw the ears against and into the wagon. The picker would wear a special
corn hook that would help pick clean and picking clean was preferred. As for shelling the corn, husks made no difference to mechanical
shellers as they shelled the corn from the cob and separated corn from cobs and husks. Hand shellers required clean corn. As for grinding,
hammer mills would grind cobs and husks. Just need to use appropriate sized screen. Fed a lot of cattle out with ground ear corn. Pay
attention to moisture as ground corn will mold if not fed quickly.
 
I remember helping Dad grind feed with a WD Allis and a David Bradly hammermill. Just grind the husk with the corn. We would grind so many bags of corn then oats and barley. He would dump two bags of ground corn on the barn floor then had a fist full of mineral then dump a bag each of oats and barley on the pile. Then we would shovel the pile into another pile to mix it then scoop it up and bag it. I think we wore the stuff out before it ever made it to the calves. Dad only had a small beef herd and a few horses then but it took a good part of the day especially if the corn and small grain were on different farms which they often were. Gehl had a good reputation in hammermills and grinder mixers. Tom
 
The corn was stored if at all possible without the husk because the husks made a perfect nest for vermin and would make the corn spoil. One said about a crew riding on wagon taking husks off, that was a big NO NO having anybody on wagon as you were likely to get hit in head with a ear being thrown. Could be killed doing that. Husks cut the capacity of shellers by half. For craking corn keep speed up but do not have any screen in machine. That lets it move fast enough out of grinding area to keep it from getting all ground up. The smaller the hole in screen the longer the product stays in grinding area and the finer it gets. A good husker can pick the corn clean. Husked on corn came about because of early pickers not having husking beds or husking beds that actually worked. They were mostly replaced as soon as pickers with good husking beds came about because of all the crib spoilage the husks caused. Our first picker was just a snapper,2 years after Dad bought it an aftermarket company started building husking beds to fit it and Dad got one and put on. Was too young to actually remember the picker being used and in 5 days I will hit the 75 mark. After about 7 years that picker was wore out. 2 years after Dad bought ours they changed things so they did not wear out like ours did.
 
The husk will go through the hammer mill and add roughage to the feed. However it uses up power/ time to hammer a husk through, you will
feed the mill slower with husks on.

You do t want too many husks on to store wet ear corn. If your corn moisture is down around 18% or less it should work, but those husks
prevent air flow in the crib and so the corn won?t air dry and it will mold and spoil if you leave all the husks on. You really want the husks off of
ear corn. Hand picking you rip the husk off as you go, a bit of husk leaf won?t hurt but you do not want fully wrapped in husk ears. They won?t
dry in the crib.

Paul
 
We had 2 Gehl hammermills when I was growing up. Fed out a few steers and a lot of hogs for a lot of years with no problems at all. We ground ear corn and hay and a lot of shelled corn. The steers got the
ground ear corn through the largest screen. When we first started picking in the fall, the ears weren't completely dry, the feed would "heat" in the burlap bags we stored it in. We mixed in small batches and
fed it up before it got moldy. The steers loved a nice warm meal!
The hogs got shelled corn through a smaller screen, and we mixed mineral and soybean oil meal right in the tank of the Gehl. We traded the first Gehl for one with a longer discharge auger so we could fill some
of the feeders from outside the fences. Worked an Allis WD, a WD-45 and a Farmall M. Excellent machines!
 
Pop said you shuck corn as you pick it pretty much all in the same move. He had a Gehl 95 that he ground and mixed a zillion bushels of corn, supplement, etc. with to feed out hogs for a lot of years before selling it when he retired. It was pretty trouble free but he kept it lubed and it slept in the shed. The couple of years I worked for a Gehl dealer I worked on a few and they were not complicated or hard to repair. gm
 
Ive hand picked ear corn walking along side a high wheel wagon with bro and dad. Florie and Dixie provided the power, and after one row, they knew without saying anything when to pick up and stop. We picked the corn clean, and ive scooped many loads into the 10 X 20 crib. Dad first got a 1 row Woods Bros picker, and we thought we would be in hog heaven not having to pick the entire field, tho we would have to open the field up at the ends and a couple places in the middle. That took 4 rows each way if I remember right. Then he got a #24 IHC 2 row picker. We didn't have to open the field anymore, and he sold the horses. The 48 H that he had didn't supply as much power as he thought he needed. ALSO, he couldn't pull the wagon underneath the attached shed at the corn crib, so he bought a 38 A JD. THEN, when my Uncle died, He bought his 41 M Farmall. THEN, we had enough power. He made us kids ride in the back of a narrow box wagon, 26bu if I remember right, and we had to take the sucks, and occasional stalk off the ears. Dad had an old construction helmet that looked like a WW 1 helmet. We would trade off. With our flap caps pulled down, and our heavy winter coats on, wed put on the helmet, run forward and grab offending stalks and shucks. It still hurt our shoulders getting hit by the corn, but we survived. We had either a Wards or Sears hammermill that sat on the outside of the barn and was piped inside into a box. This was up in the hay loft. After running a wagon load of corn through the hammermill, inside, when we went to drop hay to the cows, the dust hung on all the spiderwebs. Looked kinda spooky.
 
Dad had a Case mill. We staked it down in front of a 1000.00 bushel grain bin. We started grinding ear corn
right after morning chores. We ground till the bin was about 1/2 full.. I'm the guy that always got stuck in
the bin scooping away from the hammer mill. We were going to town one day and I told dad I was gonna spend my
25? on a pair of goggles to wear in side the bin. He said no, one day when I was in school he ran out of
feed. He was gonna grind enough to get thru to the weekend, but one of the old mills hammers broke off and
went thru the back side of the mill. The old mill pulled its stakes and went dancing around the lot. That was
the last corn that was ground at our place. From then on we had the neighbor bring his truck mounted sheller
and we would shell the bin full. A lot of the kernnals would pass right thru the cows, so he ran hogs in the
feed lot. They would clean up the shelled corn that passed thru the cattle.
 
On the hand husking/picking part the video is how we did it. Dad always said to many husks left on the ear would cause mold in the crib. Never had a chance to prove him wrong and really never thought about not removing most to the husks.
Husking Corn
 
here is a belt driven husker,it has multiple rollers with hooks that pull the husks off. If picked and mot husked good enough for storage, the cob corn could be dumped on one of these to clean it up some more. Most larger machine shellers were also able to husk at the same time, or if not a husker like this could also be used for that as well.
a279148.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 10:22:54 09/08/18) here is a belt driven husker,it has multiple rollers with hooks that pull the husks off. If picked and mot husked good enough for storage, the cob corn could be dumped on one of these to clean it up some more. Most larger machine shellers were also able to husk at the same time, or if not a husker like this could also be used for that as well.
a279148.jpg

Awesome. That is something that would be pretty handy on a smaller operation. You get to use the pulley off the tractor; what I'm looking for. Any "old timers" have any belt equipment like a hammer mill or sheller or anything else, let me know. I'm a "semi old timer" looking to keep old equipment alive and use it on the property I am fixing up for another 50 years. Thanks.
 

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