Hi guys, looking for some help. I was just asked me about making some anitques type corn dryers for someone.

:confused:I'm not sure how to go about it. I'm thinking just some flat bar slit then forged out into the spikes.

Could someone please give me some advice? Pictures attached. I'm sure it's simple, but I want to have an idea first.

Thanks in advance.

That's what it looks like to me. I don't know anything about them though.

Frosty

I've never heard of them or seen them before today. I was just asked to make some.

Adam

The picture shows how it's made. You may want to make a chisel that makes that first angle cut so you don't risk overlapping your directional cuts. Cut it, bend them out, and clean up any burrs with a file. It doesn't look like they did much more, but you could do a little taper on the ends to dress them up.

Thanks Brian.

I think maybe I'll try some tomorrow, they want 6 of them. Might take some scrap ones to get it right tho.

I was thinking some 1/4" X 1" flat bar, do you think it would be heavy enough?

Adam

They looked like they were about 1/8"x3/4", but its hard to tell with the picture. If it is thinner than 1/4" you could do most the splitting cold, just be careful at the crotches and the entry cut where you change direction. I've seen Alfred Habermann cut 1/4" plate cold using a little cutting oil like you use for the drill press on his chisel made from spring.

Thanks again Brian.

I planned on doing the slitting hot, never thought about doing it cold. I was thinking of using the 1/4 X 1 because I have a bunch here. Do you think its too heavy?

Adam

I don't know, but you'll probably need to do it hot if you use 1/4". That's alot of splitting. I did 8 five foot long hinges last year that were split kind of like those corn dryers and it took me 3 days to complete them and I did them hot out of 1/4"x2 1/2".

Hey Adam. I've made a couple and sold them at Rendezvous. I made mine from 1"X 1/8", split the prongs off, dress up with a file. Taper the top and put a scroll hook on it to hang it up. Use them to dry ears of sweet corn. Then shell it off, pop it in a pan like pop corn(Parched Corn). The kernals swell out but don't pop open like pop corn. Good snack food around the camp fire at night.

Cool, thanks for the help!

Adam

The commercial ones were done cold probably with a punch press no forging of the points
One end has square hole to connect driers together

The originals I have seen were all pretty crude. Some of the real wrought iron ones had the spikes forge welded onto the shaft.

I thought about forge welding them on, but that would raise the price to the customer way too much.

Adam

I've got around a dozen of those "corn dryers" floating around on the ... rusty iron pile.

I just measured some. They are stamped out of flat bar stock 1/8 x 5/8 by 19 inches long. As rusty as they are, you can still see that they were MACHINE STAMPED to shape. Those spikes were sheared out with top/bottom dies. Ditto the end holes. The spikes are 3 inches long, 3/16ths wide, slit off from either side in pairs, and there are 5 pairs per hanger. The points are created with the slitting process angling out from the parent stock. One end hole is punched 3/8 square. The hole on the other end is punched out only on three sides - leaving a tab left bent out a little. That tab is then hooked through the hole on the next one to hang a series of them together.

As even and consistent as they are, some company must have made up a special top/bottom die combination to shear and bend the spikes out and punch the holes/tabs all in one hit. Or they had a rolling die/slitter, fed the flat bar stock through it, then cut to even 19 inch lengths and punched the two end holes. But I think it was one long stamping/slitting/bending die.

There is another version made from wire loops. You cut heavy wire to length, loop in in half leaving the loop wide enough at the top to go around two thicknesses of the wire, bend the legs up to within 45 degrees, slip the next looped wire over those legs, and then spread the legs out to the sides to lock them together. Kind of like linking some chain together.

They will be a time-consuming project to make by hand. Make sure you charge enough to make them. But finding originals in antique stores is pretty iffy. And I've seen them listed for anywhere between $10 and $20 each - when I have found them in a shop. Most just got tossed in the scrap iron piles.

Hope this helps.
Mikey - that grumpy ol' german blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

I'm sure I can get enough, they are becoming regular customers. Thanks for the write up Mike, I'll be sure to post pictures when I make one.

Adam