[AT] Good Combine Day

[Greg Hass]

For many years I have made the statement that if you need something, 
someone somewhere has it at a reasonable price for you, and they are happy 
to sell it.  Yesterday was a good example of this.

  Lately I have made several references to edible beans.  This is a 
continuation of that.  This year I have 22 acres of black beans.  Being 
only a 110 acre farmer, I have mainly old equipment.  For several years I 
have been harvesting my edible beans with a #82 IH pull-type 
combine.  However, this machine has had one big drawback...it has no 
straw-chopper.

In our area beans come off first and it is common practice to plant winter 
wheat after the beans because it is still early enough in the 
season.  However, it is impossible to work the field unless the bean straw 
has been chopped up.  (For many years, everyone in our area just burned the 
bean straw, but today that practice would likely land one in jail.)  For 
several years I have gone behind the combine with our forage harvester, 
chopped the bean straw and blown it back into the field.  Besides the extra 
fuel and taking an extra day-and-a-half of work, it was very hard on the 
chopper.  For the past 3 years, I have been looking at the combine and 
trying to figure out how one could retrofit a straw-chopper on it, but the 
main problem has been how to drive it.

Which brings me back to the first sentence of my post.  A week ago my 
brother borrowed my copy of the book, 150 years of International Harvester, 
and had it lying on the counter at work.  A customer came in, was looking 
through and stopped at the section on combines.  One thing led to another 
and my brother mentioned that I had a #82 IH combine and was always 
concerned that I didn't have a way to chop the straw with the combine.  The 
customer then replied, "Oh, I have one at home complete with 
straw-chopper."  (I never knew a straw-chopper was ever commercially made 
for a pull-type combine like this.)  For $200 I bought the combine and 
straw-chopper.  The combine has been outside for 5 years, but the 
straw-chopper has been kept indoors.  The straw-chopper was made by 
Innes-Lockwood (sp?).  It was a short-line company which specialized in 
bean harvest equipment.  If it exists toady, it has been purchased by 
another company and no longer goes by that name.  I haven't got it home yet 
as the owner wants to remove the hydraulic cyclinder and hoses from it, and 
said he would put good enough rims and tires on it for me to get it the 25 
miles home.  I may need to return the rims and tires as he was probably 
going to take them off of a wagon. I intend to use this combine as parts 
machine anyway, and install the straw-chopper on my present combine.  All 
in all a good day.

Greg Hass