Corn Cob Lessons

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
See more from Old Griz

Status
Not open for further replies.

Old Griz

Passed Away Oct 4, 2013
In Memoriam
Joined
Mar 17, 2004
Messages
1,977
Location
Hagerstown, MD, USA.
Was putting away some stuff in the old chicken coop at my FIL's farm yesterday.. and found the motherload of dry corn cobs...
There has not been a chicken in this coop in over 35 yrs... so these cobs are at least that old... very very dry and hard... perfect pen material...
Now I have never turned a cob pen before and read that you need to stabilize them with CA... so I thought OK... I will pour some CA on them before I cut and drill them.. that should prevent tear out and wandering drill bits.... then I decided since they were hard now.. I would try to turn it round before drilling it....
Have you ever tried to turn marble on your lathe... that is what it felt like.... I managed to get the rough stuff from the outside to chip (notice I did not say CUT) off using a roughing gouge that I had to sharpen 4 times.. The core is another story all together... rock hard... I doubt I will finish playing with that cob until I get some carbide cutting tools, LOL
SO off to another cob... cut and drilled and turned fine.. got almost to the final size and CA'd it... finish cut with light touch... got a little smaller than I wanted at the nib.. but still feels good..
Final finish CA sanded in at 400 grit.. sand again to 600 grit, EEE polish, then Turner's Magic (3 coats), carnuba wax and then Renaissance Wax..
<center>
200498163014_CornCob.jpg
</center>
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad

Old Griz

Passed Away Oct 4, 2013
In Memoriam
Joined
Mar 17, 2004
Messages
1,977
Location
Hagerstown, MD, USA.
Bev, as soon as it stops raining here, I will take a look in the corn crib and see what I have... I saw a load of cobs in there, but don't know what condition most of them are in... the ones I grabbed were old, dry and hard and the one I turned, cut well. I will let you know.... I have found that you need to find the thinnest cobs you can if you want the nib end to show kernel outlines... so that is what I will be looking for...
The biggest problem I can see is trying to make sure that you drill the cob through the center pith which is usually off center. Fortunately this is fairly soft, so you can probably hand hold the cob in the proper orientation while you drill it... I used 5 min epoxy to glue in the tubes because CA would have soaked into the cobs too much and made them too hard to cut to final size... may also try some poly glue also..
Someone in another forum suggested epoxy to stabilize them, but that would not work because it will not soak into the cobs, just lay on the surface...
 

samm47

Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
47
Location
Kimballton, Iowa, USA.
I am making corn cob pens. They are very easy to do. Plus we have the Iowa State Corn Picking Contest here the first part of October. Am hoping to have a good selling product.
 

Efletche

Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
172
Location
.
I just bought one of the squirrel feed bags of dried corn on the cobs. We have some Amish friend back north, so I want to do a farmers dozen (13)of these corn cob pens for them. If we quit getting these darn hurricanes so I have power for my lathe, I'll get working on these this weekend.
 

ilikewood

Member
Joined
May 11, 2004
Messages
1,365
Location
Twin Falls, ID, USA.
Bev,
If you want a fast corn cob to try, go to your local Walmart or super grocery store and look in the animal food section. They usually have dried corn on the cob for squirrels and the like. Just take the corn off and you will have good hard corn cobs ready to go. It ends up being about 75 cents each.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom