This Corn Sheller Hand Operated Blackhawk Vintage Homesteading Tool is a genius blast from the past. Homesteaders from long ago knew how to make tools that last and without electricity.
Back in the day, many farmers would be forced to allow the corn to dry out on the stalk in order to ensure more efficient shelling. However, for generations now, humans have been working on ways to make tedious tasks easier and more efficient; and that includes corn, as the Blackwell corn sheller proves.
Corn is a wonderful thing, in culinary terms. Besides being delicious and having a unique taste, its use in the kitchen is manifold. It can be eaten as is, or it can be roasted or grilled as part of the main course, used in a soup or salad starter, or even ground down to flour for a unique-tasting bread.
But the thing about corn is that a lot of its more complicated uses require shelling. And as any farmer will tell you, shelling corn is a seriously tedious process. Done by hand, it requires picking off the stubborn kernels one by one, and even a single ear can take ages.
Though they may be quite hard to find now, having been first patented in the late 1800s, the Blackwell corn sheller is an extremely impressive device, especially considering when it was made. This device shells the corn rapidly, and deposit the shell in a containing bin that they’re positioned over. If you manage to get hold of one, they may need a bit of oiling and a few bolts replaced; but overall, they’re a wonderfully vintage way of speeding up the shelling process.
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