Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Scatter Terrain - Corn Cribs

While I am not able to work directly on the WOJE scenario book, I am doing my level best to work around it. I am trying to figure out what would be useful scatter terrain for it.

One item I decided to attempt is a Corn Crib. These are described as a "long structures are narrow at the bottom with sides that taper outward at the top and are usually sided with narrow slats nailed on either vertically or horizontally. A shed or gable roof, a door at one or both ends, and a couple of small doors high up just under the eaves on one side complete the thing. The building is usually in a dilapidated and run-down condition, teetering on posts set in the ground, leaning one way or the other, and at serious risk of toppling over." (source)

The same post also offers some more useful information on the Corn Crib: "The recommended size for a small corncrib was 4 feet across the bottom with sides about 6 feet high and tapering outward to a width at the top of 6 feet. With those dimensions, one could figure on space for about 25 bushels per foot of length (cribs were built in varying lengths depending upon the anticipated storage requirements). These long, narrow cribs had either gable or shed roofs and sometimes were built with vertical outside walls.

Corncribs were set 1 to 2 feet above the surface of the ground on wooden, stone or concrete piers, each of which was capped with a metal shield to deter rodents from climbing them. Wooden slats measuring 1 inch by 3 inches were nailed to the sides vertically, diagonally or horizontally, and spaced about 1 inch apart. An entrance door was placed at one end and smaller doors were placed under the eaves on one side; corn could be shoveled through those when filling the crib. On really long cribs, the interior was sometimes divided into separate bins and additional entrance doors were required. When mechanical elevators became common, hatches were often cut into the roof for filling. Corn was removed through small doors cut into the side at floor level, or sometimes through the entrance door.

Wide overhanging eaves and the tapered sides kept all but driving rain from penetrating the sides, while the narrowness of the building and the 1-inch space between the siding boards allowed adequate air circulation to completely dry the grain.

The battle against field mice and rats was constant. Sheet metal guards on post tops helped, and some farmers covered the lower side of their cribs with hardware cloth to further deter the pesky little beasties, but some would always find their way in."

The motivation for a corn crib is derived from a statement in Major Thomas Young's narrative of the Battle of Hammond's Store. He desribes an incident where a young rebel is chasing down a fleeing Tory. "the little fellow charging around a crib after a Tory." While it is not definitive that this describes a corn crib, they were common place in the area. I have picked two to model. One is from a post card found on line and another is from a site in North Carolina. The North Carolina one is a larger structure that would be appropriate to a larger farm while the smaller could be used almost anywhere for the AWI or ACW.

These are the two that I am attempting to model.

I have the basics of the small one complete. Once they are done they will be added to the payHip site to download. I am placing the 3d models in a pay what you want bucket. They are scaled to 1/100 or 15mm but can be shrunk or grown as needed in your slicer software. You can check out what I have done so far here on my PayHip Store. This is the work in progress shot of the small Corn Crib.

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