Grinding feed with sears and roebuck hammer mill

We, my dad, raised a lot of chickens, back in the 40's, 50's, & 60's. We always had the ear corn shelled before it was ground for the chickens. For our dairy cows it was ground on the cob. The cows required more bulk in their grain.

Edited by Dusty MI - 30 Oct 2017 at 7:12pm

we flipped the belt too, but I think it was to only make sure the rotation was correct

We had a Gehl PTO grinder, 15" wide screen, 5/16 hole screen.  Had 1 shoveling and grand-dad standing at the grinder, to meter the ear corn in.  Used that feed, fer cows, pigs and chickens. I bought a 1"screen in the early '80's, made that nasty job a little easier. Hated grindin corn, in hot weather, or when it was new (wet) corn...  Still have that grinder, Man, it could make the D-19 diesel SNORT!

So does it say Sears on it? Or is it a David Bradley which was sold by Sears? I remember Dad having a David Bradley hammer mill that we ground corn feed with in for the calves and his horses. We ran it with my WD. We would grind the corn and bag it then oats and barley. We would dump two bags of corn on the barn floor and then one bag each of oats and barley and add some mineral then reshoveled the pile and then bagged it up. I sure was happy when we got a grinder mixer. Tom

The belt should be coming in from the other side of the grinder, and using a twist, but i could not get the belt to stay on correctly, so I settled for this

Sandknob, if you will align the tractor correctly the belt will stay on and it is easier done twisted. you need to have that hooked up properly for safety reasons. that means not along the feed chute.  The machinery was designed to be ran off of a twisted belt, not to just change the direction of rotation

mainly you have to have the tractor with the belt running parallel with it and adjust the rear end of the tractor left or right until the belt stays on.  turn the belt by hand to see which way it wants to travel towards the inside of pulley or off the outside of pulley then move either whole tractor side ways or just the front end left if the belt too close to tractor or right if the belt is wanting to come off tractor.  If the belt wants to come off the pulley on grinder move tractor side ways to correct it. Do Not run the belt too tight. It needs a little sway to it depending on the length. just tight enough so it does not sway when running. if you have trouble with it slipping on the pulleys apply a small amount of belt dressing instead of getting it too tight.  with patience and practice you can do it.  I learned how when in grade school so I know you can do it. If you want more help pm me. I don't watch regularly but it should go to my email.  then I will call

What Ted said.  A twist reverses the direction, pure and simple. The hammers may work when turned in either direction, but the blower won't. As for belts that won't stay on, it can be a bear getting them aligned. The pulleys have to line up on the two axis. If the belt starts to "travel" across the pulley as the load increases it's usually because the two pulleys aren't quite parallel to each other.

Someone probably wasn't paying attention when they laced the two ends together after a repair. I don't see any advantage to doing that.

I have used my CA on a Burr Mill, and I did not have to twist the belt.  Likewise on the buck saw.  But I had to twist the belt on the WD-45 so I got the correct rotation of the saw or mill.
Belt pulley on the back turn different then one on the side of the engine.
Dale

IBWD MIke wrote: I shoveled a lot of ear corn into I believe a Montgomery Wards hammermill when I was young. Pretty sure that is where a lot of my hearing went. The constant ringing in my ears started about that time.

Mike, we had a Montgomery-Wards hammer mill too.
Ground corn for cows every Sat am.  The D17 Diesel handled it well.

We had always left a drawbar pin on top of the tongue; rather than  always having to scare one up.

One time when I was hooking up the MW grinder, couldn't find the darn pin.....  looked all over.

Grabbed a bolt from the shop and got it hooked up.
Put the PTO in gear and throttled up.
Less than a minute later, a gawdawful noise from the grinder.
"Someone" had left the pin on the apron belt.
Was scared to have to tell Dad what happened, but finally did.
He didn't say much.  He went to Sioux City and got all  new hammers as most of them got broken.
After a while, I got to thinking....  HE left the pin on the apron.

Ted J wrote: The ONLY reason for the twist in the belt is to turn whatever piece of machinery in the CORRECT direction. NO twist, it ran clockwise TWIST in the belt, it ran counter-clockwise. It's as simple as that... think about it.....

Why not turn the tractor around?

thendrix wrote: Why not turn the tractor around?

Screen size makes a difference. With a large screen and only running kernels through it, you probably can feed it fairly fast if driving it with a C. Corn on the cob and ground finer for cows will make a C snort very quickly.

thendrix wrote: Ted J wrote: The ONLY reason for the twist in the belt is to turn whatever piece of machinery in the CORRECT direction. NO twist, it ran clockwise TWIST in the belt, it ran counter-clockwise. It's as simple as that... think about it..... Why not turn the tractor around?

Edited by Dipstick In - 01 Nov 2017 at 5:55am