Posted 5 years ago
esegal
(12 items)
This is a "CORN KING" corn sheller made by the Sandwich MFG Co in Sandwich IL. The Sandwich Manufacturing Co. was started in 1856 when Augustus Adams moved from Elgin, Illinois where he had been active in the foundry business. Adams and his 2 older sons developed their own brand of spring and cylinder corn shellers, both hand and power operated, and soon branched out into other types of farm equipment. While not as large as many of the other equipment manufacturers, the Sandwich Line of high quality equipment was known the world over. Sandwich Manufacturing Co. was sold to New Idea Spreader Co. of Coldwater, Ohio in 1930, and as part of the change over, all of the old Sandwich records were destroyed along with over 100 tons of parts. This one was in pretty good shape when I got it. It was missing the feed ramp,but I made one using wood from my reclaimed stock pile and referencing catalog pictures. It was missing the hand crank and leather drive belt was severely damaged so I replaced it with a sewing machine leather drive belt (fit and matches and works perfectly). I managed to find a hand crank from another identical machine and its owner sold it to me for $25. I cleaned and cured all the cast iron, and sealed all of the wood with non-gloss matte polyurethane. BTW, there were plenty of mud dauber wasps nests in it that I cleaned out too! This device weighs about 150 lbs, and sits on my front porch now as a functional display.
