[AT] Combine Canvases Needed

John Boehm rustyacres at yahoo.com
Wed May 23 06:19:10 PDT 2007


Last summer I acquired a John Deere grain binder made
in 1948 in Canada. It came with the original canvasses
and had been about five years or more since the outfit
was used. Over the winter, I tried to rebuild the 60
year old canvasses as needed to make them work, with a
lot of new strapping, rivets, new slats, etc. The
cloth on the two elevator canvasses needed to have
about the last two feet of fabric replaced on each of
them. I went off to Joann Fabrics with my wife as an
escort and we bought a few yards of heavy cotton duck
material. My wife then helped me cut  the fabric to
size and overlapped and sewed it to the old fabric. I
held up and manuvered the canvas as she sewed it. It
worked well enough, but left her beloved Bernina so
dirty that it need to be taken in for a thorough
cleaning! After  the sewing, I reattached the straps
and the slats. This method worked just fine and I was
able to bind some grain at our annual threshing show
this past weekend.

The platform canvas was another matter, though. I did
not need to replace any sections of fabric, but the
entire thing was so weak, that even with lots of new
strapping, staples, and rivets, the canvas still keep
pulling apart. I knew this one was not going to work
and went in to our local Woodland Draper and had them
make up a new draper of the type described by Ralph.
It is a rubberized fabric with internal slats. It is
held together with a pair of master slats bolted
together and that hold each end of the draper. That
new platform draper worked beautifully, even if it may
not look quite original. Plus, it should last pretty
much forever.  I can see that eventually I will need
to replace the two elevator canvasses, too.

One important thing I learned about the replacement
strapping. I thought nyloin strapping would be the
ideal choice since it would be stronger than cloth
strapping. While that may be, it does not hold as well
in the buckles. The other problem is that if your
canvas gets too slack and the rollers are turning
without the canvas also turning, the friction
generated will melt right through the nylon!

John Boehm
Woodland, CA
Visit my web site at http://vintagetractors.com


--- Ralph Goff <alfg at sasktel.net> wrote:

> Al Jones wrote:
> 
> > Perchance does anyone have a set of canvases for a
> 52R?  If nothing
> > else, I wish I had the exact measurements for both
> canvases so maybe I
> > can have some made later.
> > 
> > 
> > Ideas welcome!
> > Al
> 
> Al, I don't know if you are familiar with swathers
> (windrowers) but they 
> have canvasses that are joined together by a couple
> of metal slats with 
> screws sort of sandwiching the two ends of the
> canvas together. This is 
> how my swathers , and I think all, are set up now.
> Maybe you could use a 
> similar method to join an extra piece to your
> canvas.
> I recall the old combines and swathers used to have
> straps and buckles 
> to join the ends of the canvas together. It was an
> important step to 
> remember to undo those buckles every night at
> quitting time in case it 
> rained and caused the canvas to shrink and damage
> itself or the rollers.
> The swathers I use today just have a spring loaded
> tightener at the end 
> of the table that releases the tension with a
> quarter turn of a lever.
> 
> Ralph in Sask.
> 
> 
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