7 Best Manual Fanning Mills For Small Farms Old-Timers Swear By

You’ve just spent an hour with a scythe, cutting down a beautiful stand of heirloom wheat. The sheaves are curing in the barn, and now comes the real work: threshing and cleaning. That pile of grain, chaff, and straw looks daunting, but this is the moment where an old piece of equipment proves its timeless worth.

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Why a Manual Fanning Mill is Still Essential

A hand-cranked fanning mill is about more than just nostalgia. It’s about independence. It’s the ability to clean your own grain for flour, clean your own corn for animal feed, and most importantly, save your own pure seed for next year’s crop without relying on electricity or outside processors.

The beauty of these machines lies in their simplicity. A wooden frame, a fan, a hopper, and a set of shaking screens—that’s it. You can understand how it works just by looking at it, and you can often fix it with basic tools. This isn’t a black box; it’s a transparent, durable tool built to last for generations.

Some will say you can get by with a bucket and a shop vac, and for a tiny patch, you can. But that method offers zero precision. A fanning mill doesn’t just clean grain; it grades it. It separates the heavy, plump, viable seeds from the light, weak ones, ensuring that what you plant next spring is the absolute best you have. That is the key to improving your crops year after year.

Clipper No. 2B: The All-Around Farm Standard

If you find a fanning mill in an old barn, there’s a good chance it’s a Clipper. Made by the A.T. Ferrell Company, the Clipper No. 2B is the quintessential all-purpose mill, a true workhorse that found its way onto countless small farms. Its design, with two separate shaking shoes, gives your grain a double cleaning in a single pass.

The Clipper’s strength is its versatility. With the right set of screens, it can handle anything from large corn kernels and beans down to tiny clover and alfalfa seeds. It’s the jack-of-all-trades, capable of doing a respectable job on nearly any crop you throw at it. This makes it an ideal choice for the diversified hobby farm.

The catch? Its usefulness is entirely dependent on having the right screens. A Clipper mill with only one set of screens for wheat is just a wheat cleaner. Before buying one, always check how many screens come with it and what condition they’re in. Finding original screens can be a treasure hunt, but they are out there if you know where to look.

J.I. Case "Eclipse" Mill for Heavy Grains

The J.I. Case name is synonymous with heavy-duty farm machinery, and their "Eclipse" fanning mills are no exception. These units are unapologetically overbuilt. They are heavy, solid, and designed to process serious quantities of dense grains without vibrating into a pile of sawdust.

This is the mill you want for wheat, barley, and shelled corn. The powerful fan generates a strong, consistent blast of air that effectively lifts chaff and light debris, while the robust screen-shaking mechanism handles the weight of heavy grains with ease. It’s a piece of equipment that feels like it was built to run all day, every day.

For a farmer focused primarily on cereal grains or corn, a Case mill is a fantastic find. It might be overkill if you’re only cleaning a few pounds of lettuce seed, but for the backbone crops of a small homestead, its durability is unmatched.

Manson Campbell "Chatham" for Seed Purity

The Manson Campbell Company built their "Chatham" mills with one primary goal in mind: seed purity. Their marketing often focused on how cleaning and grading seed could dramatically increase farm profits. As a result, these mills earned a reputation for exceptional separation capabilities.

A Chatham mill often features very precise adjustments for airflow and screen pitch. This allows you to fine-tune the machine to perfectly match the seed you’re cleaning, making it incredibly effective at removing stubborn weed seeds like cocklebur or wild mustard that are similar in size to your crop.

If you are a dedicated seed saver or grow heirloom varieties, a Chatham is a top-tier choice. It gives you the control needed to ensure that you’re not just cleaning your seed, but actively improving your stock by selecting for the very best. It turns seed cleaning from a chore into a critical part of your farm’s genetic stewardship.

Racine Johnson & Field for Precision Grading

While all fanning mills clean, the Racine, made by Johnson & Field, was renowned for its ability to grade with uncanny precision. This mill was for the farmer who needed to do more than just separate wheat from chaff; they needed to separate the best wheat from the good wheat.

The magic of the Racine lies in its meticulous design, which allows for sorting seeds by both weight and size. By carefully adjusting the fan speed, baffles, and screen selection, a skilled operator could separate a harvest into multiple grades. This was essential for farmers selling seed to others or for those who wanted to plant only the absolute heaviest kernels for the strongest germination.

Think of it this way: a standard mill gives you clean seed. A Racine gives you A-grade, B-grade, and C-grade seed. For most hobbyists, this might be more precision than needed. But if you’re growing seed corn, prize-winning beans, or simply want to maximize the vigor of your next planting, this is the mill to look for.

The Hero Fanning Mill: A Simple, Robust Choice

Not every tool needs to be complex. The Hero Fanning Mill is a perfect example of simple, effective design. These mills are often less intricate than a Clipper or Racine, with a straightforward mechanism that prioritizes reliability over fine-tuned adjustability.

Its simplicity is its greatest asset. With fewer moving parts and a rugged build, there’s less that can go wrong. For a small farmer who just needs to clean a few bushels of oats for the chickens or wheat for home milling, the Hero gets the job done without any fuss. It’s easy to operate, easy to understand, and easy to maintain.

This isn’t the machine for a dedicated seed purist trying to remove a specific weed seed. But for general-purpose cleaning, its dependability is a huge advantage. It embodies the principle of using the simplest tool that can effectively accomplish the task.

A.P. Dickey Mill: A Midwestern Farm Favorite

Walk through enough barns in the Midwest, and you’re bound to stumble across an A.P. Dickey mill. These machines were incredibly popular throughout the American grain belt, and for good reason. They were known for their durability and high capacity.

The Dickey was built to handle the prodigious output of heartland farms. It’s a no-nonsense machine designed for efficiency, capable of cleaning large volumes of grain with a steady turn of the crank. They are a testament to a time when equipment was built to be used hard and passed down.

Because they were so common, they can still be found today, often in surprisingly good condition. The woodwork is typically solid, though you’ll want to inspect the screen frames and the fan for any rot or damage. Finding a Dickey is like finding a direct, working link to the heritage of American small-scale agriculture.

Owens Pea & Bean Thresher: Specialty Crop Star

While most fanning mills can be adapted for legumes, the Owens mills were often built specifically for them. Cleaning delicate crops like dry beans and peas presents a unique challenge: you need to separate them from their pods and debris without cracking or splitting the seeds themselves.

An Owens Pea & Bean Thresher often has a different mechanism than a standard grain mill. The airflow, screen agitation, and even the internal threshing components are designed to be gentler. This careful handling is crucial for maintaining the quality of your harvest, especially if you plan to sell the beans or save them for seed.

If legumes are a cornerstone of your farm—whether it’s pinto beans, black-eyed peas, or lentils—an Owens is the right tool for the job. Using a standard, aggressive grain mill can easily result in a 10-20% loss due to split beans. The specialized design of the Owens pays for itself by preserving the integrity and value of your specialty crop.

Ultimately, the best fanning mill is the one that fits your farm’s specific needs. Whether you need an all-around workhorse like the Clipper or a specialist like the Owens, these old machines offer a powerful connection to sustainable farming practices. By breathing new life into this old iron and wood, you’re not just cleaning grain; you’re taking control of your food and seed, one turn of the crank at a time.