Harvesters

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Brian
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Harvesters

Post by Brian »

As a lot of you know, my other interest apart from Fordson tractors, is harvesters of all types. Having been working with combines since the early 1960's and in later years designing control systems for potato and sugar beet harvesters it should be no surprise that I jumped at the chance to spend time with an old vintage machine when in Australia. The McKay stripper/header is something I have known about for most of my working life but conditions in England at harvest time did not allow the machine to work and so it was not seen here although a number of companies have attempted to replicate the design.

When we visited Australia in 2012 my friend Leigh showed me around his 1937 AL and we visited the McKay museum in Elmore, Victoria but, at that time, Leigh's wheat crop was not quite fit so I had to make do with trips around a huge "paddock" on a 40' Axial Flow instead.

On this visit however I had warned Leigh we were coming and the dates so he planted his paddock so that it would be ready to harvest whilst we were staying with him for the Fordson Club of Australia weekend in early November. It also allowed him to demonstrate the machine to the many people who attended, some of whom, like me, had never seen such a machine in action.

The stripper/header is very simple, it is like a comb that runs through the crop and pulls the heads from the crop leaving the straw standing in the field. The idea goes back to the 1860's and was perfected by a gentleman named Jesse Riddley but his machine only collected the heads and grain into a chamber at the rear. The grain and chaff then had to be emptied onto the ground and then fed by hand through a winnowing machine before being placed in sack for storage and transport.

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The McKay "Sunshine" stripper/header not only gathered the corn but also threshed, winnowed and collected the grain into a holding tank in the field and from that into the sacks for storage.

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Leigh's 1937 McKay AL

A mass of chains and belts! The machine originally was horse drawn and ground drive but it has been converted to PTO drive.

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The sieve box which moves at right angles to the direction of travel, unlike the modern combine harvesters.

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Oilers with wool wicks lubricate all the moving parts. No grease nipples to this machine.

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More belts, chains and oilers!

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She is finally ready to take to the paddock.

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Mal fits the main drive belts before testing.

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Leigh makes a final check that all the oilers are full.

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I take a chance to get a shot of the front mounted threshing elements before startup.

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And we set off.


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Click on the small picture for a short video.

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The stripper comb and the force feeder. When the rope in the picture is pulled the metal frame above the comb drops down and, driven by a cam system, clears any heads that are stuck in the comb.


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The "Super DeLuxe Operators Consul" The big lever and the small pedal set the height of the comb in the crop

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A blockage in the upper peg drum and it is all hands on deck! The covers go back on and off we go again.

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Leigh checks that we are not loosing grain. This machine is surprisingly frugal even if it is 77 years old.

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The harvesting team in full flight!

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Eventually we have to stop the fun and unload the grain.

I have been looking into my ancestors and found that my fourth great uncle and his family settled in Australia in the 1850. Part of this trip was to find out if there were still family members over there and, yes, we did find some, farming in the Beulah area of Victoria. This is an original stripper/header owned by one of them and bought new back in the early years of the last century.

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A push version! Horses were harnessed to this pole at the rear of the stripper header and it was pushed by them into the crop.

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A slightly differnt feed mechanism on a McKay Auto Header. This version is self propelled and could be powered by either a Fordson "F" industrial engine or a Continental.

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The "Super Deluxe Seat and Air Conditioned Cab".

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This sieve box travels in the "normal" direction on the later machines.


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Other manufactures made similar machines when patents ran out.

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This one is a much modified McKay machine, farmer built, to handle and clean clover seed. The threshed seed is elevated from the grain tank by an auger and fed into the cleaning mechanism of another McKay machine mounted on the side.

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Again a much later machine

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McKay Sunshine Works was eventually taken over by Massey Harris and later Massey Ferguson.

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A rare "pick up" fed machine.
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian

Pascal
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Re: Harvesters

Post by Pascal »

Thank you very much for sharing these pictures and the flick, Brian!

Really interesting to take a closer look at this technic!
Best regards,
Pascal

Fordson's don't leak oil, they are just marking their territory.

oehrick
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Re: Harvesters

Post by oehrick »

Thats a little known chunk of harvesting history Brian, you should work it up into an article for one of the comics - they seem to be struggling for original interesting material these days :yikes:
Best regards
Rick - Bogside on Bure


1958 Diesel E1A Mk2 s/n 1470165 - still in working clothes

henk
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Re: Harvesters

Post by henk »

Great picture story.
Seems the harvesters on the European side of the globe has made a compleet other start.
Kind regards, Henk

Fordson New Major February 1957 Mark I

Pavel
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Re: Harvesters

Post by Pavel »

Which is why, even today, here in Oz combine harvesters are called headers, as is the table. Up until the introduction of minimum till, paddock stubbles were burnt after being grazed by sheep or cattle. And some still burn them off today.

Pavel

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Re: Harvesters

Post by BearCreek Majors »

Neat stuff Brian, I have never seen such a thing. Did they normally leave the straw in the fields or did they later harvest it for bedding?

Pat

Brian
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Re: Harvesters

Post by Brian »

Hi Pat,
Pavel has said in the post above how they used to handle the straw that was left, graze it with sheep and cattle then burn or now plough it in.

It seemed strange to see sheep and lamas plus cattle in wide open spaces of stubble after the combines had been through.

The modern combine uses a knife to cut the crop now, the stripper header days are long gone but it is such a simple and effective way of bringing in the crop. The losses are very low indeed, if you look closely at the comb in the pictures you will see that the top is concave, not flat. Any grain that falls out of the ear is collected in these areas on top of the fingers and is constantly swept into the machine by the moving crop.
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian

Pavel
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Re: Harvesters

Post by Pavel »

Interesting point mentioned by Brian -- llama's, or Alpaca's as they are called here. Many sheep mobs have two or three mixed with them as, for some reason, they are a strong deterant against fox and dog attacks [we have no Dingo's here in the south west]. Another interesting thing; some farms have a special breed of dogs that live with the sheep, and these also are an effective guard against attacks.

Pavel.

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