Field Corn Hand Sheller

I'm sort of proud of it since I (John) drew it up in 3D CAD (using Alibre) and then printed it on our 3D printer.  I did multiple iterations to get the feel of it just right. My goal was to make it feel comfortable in the hand and also be effective at removing dry corn kernels from large ears of field corn.  After I was happy with the design, I then got the product quoted for production with various injection molding companies in the U.S. and overseas.  After lots of discussion regarding production costs I settled on a company in China.  I was then able to send them a 3D CAD file which they used to produce molds for the sheller.

Several weeks later they sent me several samples using different types of plastic.   In the meantime, I designed the simple product label.  After I was satisfied with the product and label, they began production.  After a few more weeks, several pallets of these nifty little gizmos showed up at our warehouse. 

It was a really enjoyable process and very neat to see a product through from conception to retail.