[AT] threshing day

[Cecil Bearden]

I also had a Massey Harris 26.  It had the smaller Chrysler industrial, 
and used a starter motor connected to a gearbox to raise and lower the 
header.

In 1976 I did not have a job after graduating from college.   I got the 
bright idea to try custom combining.  I had an A gleaner, Massey 
Harris26, and the Massey Harris 90.  I had 2 trucks with grain beds and 
bought a shop built combine trailer.   The 90 had the engine block 
welded earlier, and started leaking oil just after unloading at the 
first field.  The 2nd day the Gleaner started blowing oil out the 
exhaust, and at the end of the day the 26 was knocking badly.   I found 
a Massey Ferguson 410 at a John Deere dealer and finished the field I 
had started.    There was no wheat left in the area, but there was a 
220acre field of oats owned by a big farmer and director of the local 
bank.  I spent the next 10 days thrashing windrowed oats in that field 
with a windrow attachment.   I got $900 partial payment from the banker, 
and then he decided that I did not get enough oats out of that field for 
him.  He averaged 35 bushels, he wanted 50 bushels.  The county average 
for that year was only 25 bushel!!  I got out of the combine business.  
I put an engine in the Massey 90 and sold it, installed a new oil pump 
in the 26 and sold it.     The next year I went to work for the state to 
pay off the debt from my combining !!!   I learned the hard way that a 
combine is one of the most expensive machines to keep operating.   I 
still have the gleaner back in the pasture.  It had a 6cyl Ford flat 
head industrial engine.   15 years later I pulled the engine out of the 
410 and installed it into a 63 Chevrolet winch truck, but It had set for 
a several years and smoked badly.   I still have the machine as a 
reminder not to get into combining again!!!!!   Cereal grains are baled 
here now....

Cecil in OKla


On 1/8/2017 9:10 PM, Ralph Goff wrote:
> On 1/8/2017 8:24 PM, joehardy at epix.net wrote:
>> Ralph, THANK YOU so much for this harvesting film! Enjoyed looking at all the older trucks and older equipment in operation. I have a Massy Harris 55 combine that I have used on our farm. Haven't used it in about 15 years but hope to use it again some day before I have to give it up. It used a canvas conveyor that fed into the machine which I liked because it allowed me to harvest most of my buckwheat. Whenever I combined oats that also contained weed seed, I'd spread the oats /weed seed mixture about 8" thick on the barn floor and turned it over with a shovel every few days for about a week. Then I would run it thru a Clipper seed cleaner before it was stored in our granary. I'd hire the neighbor boys to help. In fact, not long ago, one of those "boys" who is now grown up asked me that he would like to do that again in the future. I don't know it that will ever happen again. Memories! I often thought what positive impact I made on all those neighbor kids as they worked wi!
>   th me around the farm. To my knowledge, all turned out to be hard working good American citizens.  GOD bless America!    Joe Hardisky Ryman Farm, Dallas, PA
> Glad you enjoyed the film Joe. I was always crazy about those red
> painted Masseys as a kid and one of my earliest toys was the Matchbox
> Massey 780 Special combine. In fact I still have it
> although it shows signs of heavy use.
> I have never heard of your number 55 Massey combine. The one I recall
> with a canvas draper header was (I think) the number 21. Mid to late
> fourties production. That was the model
> made famous by the Harvest Brigade of WWII.
> http://ag-museum.mb.ca/artifacts/general-machinery/combines/massey-harris-model-21-combine/
>
> Ralph in Sask.
>
>
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