cleaning oats

[Charlie M]

I have an old wooden fanning mill I use to clean corn after I shell it and it works pretty well on corn. I'd like to clean some oats so I can use them for seed and the oats that come out are quite clean but it puts half them into the drawer where the weed seeds are supposed to end up. I know I don't have a good screen for oats but could probably make one if I know what the pattern should be. Any body got a picture of an oat screen from about anything you could post or at least give me a description. Another question would be what size holes for the bottom screen where I'd like only the weed seeds to fall. Mine is a bit large for oats and is one of the reason half of them are in the drawer.

 

[Leroy]

Cannot think good of name of company but new screen material is avaible in screen only or with the wood frame Rectangler hole. If you know of an old AC 60,66, 72 combine scraped out you bight be able to find the scren there, same screen as for wheat.

 

[wore out]

"Cannot think good of name of company but new screen material is avaible in screen only or with the wood frame Rectangler hole."

Mite try at the link below.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Just curious, but if the mill is a fanning mill, isn?t there the possibility the air flow blows light weight oats out as rejects ? You could easy test this by weighing a sample of your clean oats, and a sample of the discarded oats.

 

[Charlie M]

Yes it blows the light ones out the front. I can scope them up for feed. I'm trying not to crank it too fast to create too much breeze. I'm only growing a couple of acres of oats as a cover crop for a new hay field. Gives me a chance to use my AC66 combine. Oats came out of the combine before pretty clean except for the small grass seeds that were mixed in. The grass was a weed and I don't want to reseed it and I don't want it passing through any animals and reseeding either. I'll get enough cleaned doing what I'm doing to plant but would like to do better next time.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

I have never seen as clean a grain sample come from any combine that could compare with the All Crop combine .

 

[Richard G.]

Check out the A. T. Ferrell Company.
Richard in NW SC

 

[mtf]

QC screen is where I get my clipper screens.

 

[Charlie M]

When they had a scour clean attached there was never a weed seed in the grain. Unfortunately mine doesn't have one.

 

[Paul swpa]

Charlie, I just got done cleaning oats a week or so ago with our old fanning type cleaner. Top screen I use is 3X3 hardware cloth (screen wire). 3X3 means there are 3 openings per inch and 3X3 is 3 holes per inch both ways. I'd have too look to be sure but the bottom screen is the same as you would use for a window, I think classed as 8X8. The bottom screen I usually leave in for everything we clean. The top screen I change to see what is the biggest that will give a good separation of the coarse stuff. Also have room to add multiple top screens for certain circumstances. Last oats I cleaned were very bad so had a 2X2 top screen, 3X3 couple inches below that, then down to the final fines screen.

Our cleaner was hand crank too. Put a motor with a jack shaft to get the speed down on it back in the 80's to make it easier for one person to clean grain. I ended up doing about 140bu. cleaned this year.

 

[Paul swpa]

Forgot to add that I have made most of the screens we use. Make a wood frame and staple the screening on. Use the small hammer in staples not staple gun staples.

 

[caterpillar guy]

For oats you want a oval/oblong hole screen. For the top it will be about 1/8-3/16 wide and 5/8-3/4 long round ends, Then the bottom can be round or oval/oblong just so the oats don't fall through like maybe 1/16wide and 1/2 long or 1/8 round. I could go out and check the size on the screen we use later. The same top screen will work for both wheat and oats. Different bottom screens if you want them clean. Beans use a round hole for both screens. Never milled corn since we used to feed it the fines usually came out at the dryer so already pretty clean.

 

[Leroy]

This is the name I could not think of. They are located in Bluffton, Indiana.

 

[Richard G.]

Yep, we have an old Wooden Clipper B cleaner here that gets used some times.

 

[rockyridgefarm]

Picture of the cleaner would help a lot. Some fanning mills don t allow for screen changes.

Newer screens are perforated sheet metal. Round holes are generally measured in 64ths, so a 24 has 24/64ths holes. Slotted are measured width in 64ths and stated length, so a 10x3/4 is 10/64ths wide and 3/4" long. Smaller holed screens can have the full measure printed on them, 1/12x1/2 is 1/12" wide by 1/2" long.

Depending on the size of your oats, you will want between a 20 and 24 round on the top (scalper screen), and around a 1/12x 1/4 bottom (seive screen). It is not really exact, something close will do the trick. You will also want to either slow the speed of the fan or baffle the inlet to get less wind. It depends on what kid if job you want to do. If you want only the best seed, keep the air more and get more out on the ground, if you only want to clean it enough to get it thru the drill keep the wind low to only blow out the chaff.