All-Crop Harvester Rebuild

[TomYaz]

We had a chat about these machines a way back..

An update for your amusement: (pictures will appear on bottom of page)

http://www.yazallcrop.com/rebuild.aspx

No "dupont overhaul" here...

[geo in mi]

$14k? Gasp.....


geo

[Williams farm]

I wish them well. Its an amazing venture they're trying!

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by geo in mi

$14k? Gasp.....


geo

Yep...welcome to 2010, It aint 1947 anymore!

Rough cost breakdown....

Blasting and prime $1K
Non sheetmetal Parts $5K
Labor $3K
New Sheetmetal $1K
Plus...
Painting
Purchasing and hauling machine to shop.

I make $ on the non sheetmetal parts...and maybe a few $ left over when said and done.

Adds up quick!

But you practically get a new machine with a warranty to boot

I would think a brand new machine made with your typical overhead and markup that I dont have would EASY be $25K

[FarmboyBill]

Well, I suppose 14 G would be what a new one would cost, and they arnt makeing new ones that I know about.

[TomYaz]

$12K
http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/pictures/ss6.htm

$5K
http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/pictures/ss7.htm

$26K (stationary Italian made)
http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/pictures/ss8.htm

$55K
http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/pictures/ss10.htm

$70K(foriegn)
http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/pictures/ss13.htm

$11(2006)
http://www.prairiehabitats.com/pull.html
Dont know current price, but hard to beleive it coudl do the job as well as an AllCrop

>$20K
http://www.seedburo.com/productDetai..._Plot_Thresher

[Lazy J]

14K for a pulltype combine, hmm. You can find JD 4400's with both heads for less than half of that.

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

14K for a pulltype combine, hmm. You can find JD 4400's with both heads for less than half of that.

Probably could. Hopefully your harvesting enough acreage(100+) to pay for the repairs and maintenance on such worn out machinery. But then again if you are doing a lot of acreage, a pulltype isnt for you anyway.

[Lazy J]

Originally Posted by TomYaz

Probably could. Hopefully your harvesting enough acreage(100+) to pay for the repairs and maintenance on such worn out machinery. But then again if you are doing a lot of acreage, a pulltype isnt for you anyway.

At least Parts are still available for a 4400. Shelling out $14,000 for a machine as small as a AC All Crop which still needs a tractor to operate seems pretty fool hardy given the availability of decent used macines that can run circles around it.

Good luck with your venture. I am sure there is a market out there.

Jim

Here are some units near me that would fit:

Gleaner F2 with 13' grain table $3000

JD 4400 with both heads $5000

Nice JD 440 for $40000

SWEET JD 6600 for $3500

JD 4400G with corn and grain head

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

At least Parts are still available for a 4400. Shelling out $14,000 for a machine as small as a AC All Crop which still needs a tractor to operate seems pretty fool hardy given the availability of decent used macines that can run circles around it.

Good luck with your venture. I am sure there is a market out there.

Jim

Well I beg to differ... (love those hours on those macines BTW)

I have customers who have large machines but still use an All-Crop for certain grains/seeds as nothing does it better.

I had a customer who wanted a rebuilt machine to harvest his specialty seed.
Felt using the big unit was impractical for the crop in mind. I didnt have a machine ready for him in time so I lost the deal. Bummer!

Some guys dont want the hassle with maintaining an old SP unit, and want reliability.

Yes its not for everyone, but to say carte blanche that its "foolhardy" reflects a narrow perspective.

You seem to think I dont have parts?

Here are the ones I choose to advertise:

http://www.yazallcrop.com/catalogtop.aspx

And there isnt a part that is over $300.00

Yes a 4400 can obviously harvest faster, but as I alluded to, not necessarily better. Read "All-Crop In the News": http://yazallcrop.wordpress.com/

What I would think is foolhardy is a guy buying a worn down self propelled to do his 50 acres and think he is going to be ahead long term. Yeah he might get lucky and get a machine that doesnt take much maintenance, but I wouldnt bet on it. But hey at least he can brag how fast he got it done while nervously waiting for his dockage number

[springvalley]

I think they are fantastic for combineing specialty crops for seed. I have no idea why someone doesn`t start making a small combine again, probly cause they can`t get a quarter mill. for them. I personaly have a 57, JD 30 pull combine, it can combine circles around some selfpropelled combines. I`m going to go pull one home for parts next spring in case I need repairs. By the way I saw a allcrop sittin in a pasture the other day, wondering if its still useable. > Thanks Marc

[wogglebug]

What does the All-Crop have going for it, we are asked. Why would someone get something that small (presumably meaning breadth of cut) and needing a tractor to pull it and power it, when you can get a newer bigger self-propelled machine that does a better job for less cost.

Well, the first clue is in the name "All-Crop". It was designed to handle all crops, to exacting standards of purity, while not damaging the grain, at a time when, unlike now, quality mattered. In fact, quality was often all that mattered - for many of the seeds the All-Crop handled, you didn't just get dockage for a bad sample - you got no sale, and a reputation for bad product that would stick with you for years. It could handle rye to rye-grass, corn to alfalfa, beans to buckwheat, peas to clover; lentils to linseed (flax), cereals to rapeseed and canola, and produce a high-quality sample of undamaged grain for them all.

The next thing is that, as anyone who knows the subject appreciates, the narrow width of cut of the All-Crop didn't matter. Anyone who has the impression it did, doesn't know the subject. Around here, crops were mostly cereals - largely wheat and oats. In those basic crops, to quote my father, the All-Crop "went like the clappers". It covered the ground about twice as fast as harvesters with twice the width of cut - in other words doing about as many acres per hour. Certainly there are more recent machines which can cover much more ground, but does that matter? In a small self-sufficiency farm, being able to recover almost all the crops, harvesting good clean samples of a variety of grains, in a week of elapsed time spread over two months; is probably better than being able to cover the same area of a neighbour's monoculture in an hour, but being unable to handle small plots of diverse crops addressing diversified markets and home requirements.

There are definite market opportunities for a machine which does the job the All-Crop was constructed to do. The market isn't as big as it used to be, but then part of that is because the machine to address those opportunities is not available. For instance, a market for small grass seed to grow native pastures is set to take off explosively, as soon as bulk seed becomes available at reasonable cost. At the moment, it requires handling - literally by hand - and the cost is exorbitant.

Small self-sufficiency farms are another major market opportunity which simply can't be addressed at the moment. Do the math on someone selling dry grains in a small country town. Say they bagged up grains - wheat, barley, rye, triticale, grain sorghum, corn, several types of beans, peas and lentils, ground flour, then sold one bag at $1 each week to every person in the town. Startling, isn't it? At least $52,000 per 1,000 people per year. They could probably set up a flour mill, produce pasta, set up a speciality shop at the base of the mill, near-zero transport costs, major market penetration because they were selling a local product and providing local jobs. All they'd need is to able to address that with local production of speciality grains - which an All-Crop could do.

Using modern designs, modern materials and modern methods, a New All-Crop combine harvester could be produced at a price which the market could meet, and it would be both more robust and easier to use than the older machines. Until then, the rebuilt older machines can do the job, but they can't meet the volume of demand which product availability and promotion could produce.

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by wogglebug

What does the All-Crop have going for it, we are asked. Why would someone get something that small (presumably meaning breadth of cut) and needing a tractor to pull it and power it, when you can get a newer bigger self-propelled machine that does a better job for less cost.

Well, the first clue is in the name "All-Crop". It was designed to handle all crops, to exacting standards of purity, while not damaging the grain, at a time when, unlike now, quality mattered. In fact, quality was often all that mattered - for many of the seeds the All-Crop handled, you didn't just get dockage for a bad sample - you got no sale, and a reputation for bad product that would stick with you for years. It could handle rye to rye-grass, corn to alfalfa, beans to buckwheat, peas to clover; lentils to cereals, and produce a high-quality sample of undamaged grain for them all.

The next thing is that, as anyone who knows the subject appreciates, the narrow width of cut of the All-Crop didn't matter. Anyone who has the impression it did, doesn't know the subject. Around here, crops were mostly cereals - largely wheat and oats. In those basic crops, to quote my father, the All-Crop "went like the clappers". It covered the ground about twice as fast as harvesters with twice the width of cut - in other words doing about as many acres per hour. Certainly there are more recent machines which can cover much more ground, but does that matter? In a small self-sufficiency farm, being able to harvest good clean samples, recovering almost all the crop, of a variety of grains is probably better than being able to cover the same area of a neighbour's monoculture in an hour, but being unable to handle small plots of diverse crops addressing diversified markets and home requirements.

There are definite market opportunities for a machine which does the job the All-Crop was constructed to do. The market isn't as big as it used to be, but then part of that is because the machine to address those opportunities is not available. For instance, a market for small grass seed to grow native pastures is set to take off explosively, as soon as bulk seed becomes available at reasonable cost. At the moment, it requires handling - literally by hand - and the cost is exorbitant.

Small self-sufficiency farms are another major market opportunity which simply can't be addressed at the moment. Do the math on someone selling dry grains in a small country town. Say they bagged up grains - wheat, barley, rye, triticale, grain sorghum, corn, several types of beans, peas and lentils, ground flour, then sold one bag at $1 each week to every person in the town. Startling, isn't it? At least $52,000 per 1,000 people per year. They could probably set up a flour mill, produce pasta, set up a speciality shop at the base of the mill, near-zero transport costs, major market penetration because they were selling a local product and providing local jobs. All they'd need is to able to address that with local production of speciality grains - which an All-Crop could do.

Using modern designs, modern materials and modern methods, a New All-Crop combine harvester could be produced at a price which the market could meet, and it would be both more robust and easier to use than the older machines. Until then, the rebuilt older machines can do the job, but they can't meet the volume of demand which product availability and promotion could produce.

Wow Wooglebug, WELL SAID! Maybe a new AllCrop is in the future.

[clovis]

Tom~

I think that is awesome!!!! There is a need for the All Crop.

For the average guy, getting into farming is EXPENSIVE, especially for combines. Even if you own the land, the harvest equipment cost is outrageous. I would suspect that a person could argue that the price of combines, and their repair, helped kill America's small farms.

An affordable harvesting machine that is using tried and true technology, that the average guy can repair from readily available parts, makes small farms viable again in today's agriculture. No, you probably won't get rich farming 200 or 300 acres, but you won't have a $250,000 note on a combine either.

FWIW, I am friends with a farmer that runs 2000 acres. He paid $90,000 for a used Gleaner several years ago. Just this year, he spent $8,800 having just one part of that combine rebuilt. In all total, he spent $14,000 this year on combine repairs...and it still needs new tires.

Let's not forget that an affordable harvesting machine allows the average person to grow specialty crops. Even if I had buyers lined up at $10 a bushel for navy beans that I could grow on 100 acres, who in the world would I get to harvest them here in central Indiana. Heck, most farmers laughed at me when I tried to by ear corn from them, even when I offered to pick it by hand myself, and pay them a nice premium over market rates. Why on earth would I think they would be open to custom harvesting beans for me?

I find it odd that on this forum, where I've been hanging out daily since 1999, so many people flock to scream about:

1. The loss of the family farm
2. The prohibitive cost of farming, especially with land and equipment
3. The costs associated with small scale farming is outlandish
4. It is very difficult to farm on a small scale and be profitable
5. We complain that there is not enough diversity in today's agriculture
6. We complain that there is not enough diversity in today's ag commodity markets, and therefore no buyers can be developed.
7. We complain that today's agriculture is not local, but global
8. We complain that today's agriculture is being controlled by world corporate interests
9. We complain that the markets for ag commodities can be easily manipulated, just like what has happened to the crude oil markets
10. We complain that agriculture is not open to organic, chemical free farming

But when a small American company brings to market an American made machine, using American made parts...a combine that could be a game changer in today's world of small farming, we want to moan and cry about the investment cost.

Instead of focusing on how much it costs, and that it is pulled behind a tractor, shouldn't we focus on "Wow! Way to go! Nice machine for the right operation!! It's about time someone gave us that option!"?

[Ross]

I think its a great idea..... wrong combine though. Never understood the fascination with Allcrops, when an IH 80 or 82 runs that much smoother and does a better job IMO.

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by Ross

I think its a great idea..... wrong combine though. Never understood the fascination with Allcrops, when an IH 80 or 82 runs that much smoother and does a better job IMO.

Now we start the Chevy vs Ford, Bud vs Miller, Coke vs Pepsi phase of the talk right?

Welll shhhheeeeoooot, the AllCrops far outsold the others, whadas dat tell yunze?!!

[TomYaz]

Originally Posted by clovis

Tom~

I think that is awesome!!!! There is a need for the All Crop.

For the average guy, getting into farming is EXPENSIVE, especially for combines. Even if you own the land, the harvest equipment cost is outrageous. I would suspect that a person could argue that the price of combines, and their repair, helped kill America's small farms.

An affordable harvesting machine that is using tried and true technology, that the average guy can repair from readily available parts, makes small farms viable again in today's agriculture. No, you probably won't get rich farming 200 or 300 acres, but you won't have a $250,000 note on a combine either.

FWIW, I am friends with a farmer that runs 2000 acres. He paid $90,000 for a used Gleaner several years ago. Just this year, he spent $8,800 having just one part of that combine rebuilt. In all total, he spent $14,000 this year on combine repairs...and it still needs new tires.

Let's not forget that an affordable harvesting machine allows the average person to grow specialty crops. Even if I had buyers lined up at $10 a bushel for navy beans that I could grow on 100 acres, who in the world would I get to harvest them here in central Indiana. Heck, most farmers laughed at me when I tried to by ear corn from them, even when I offered to pick it by hand myself, and pay them a nice premium over market rates. Why on earth would I think they would be open to custom harvesting beans for me?

I find it odd that on this forum, where I've been hanging out daily since 1999, so many people flock to scream about:

1. The loss of the family farm
2. The prohibitive cost of farming, especially with land and equipment
3. The costs associated with small scale farming is outlandish
4. It is very difficult to farm on a small scale and be profitable
5. We complain that there is not enough diversity in today's agriculture
6. We complain that there is not enough diversity in today's ag commodity markets, and therefore no buyers can be developed.
7. We complain that today's agriculture is not local, but global
8. We complain that today's agriculture is being controlled by world corporate interests
9. We complain that the markets for ag commodities can be easily manipulated, just like what has happened to the crude oil markets
10. We complain that agriculture is not open to organic, chemical free farming

But when a small American company brings to market an American made machine, using American made parts...a combine that could be a game changer in today's world of small farming, we want to moan and cry about the investment cost.

Instead of focusing on how much it costs, and that it is pulled behind a tractor, shouldn't we focus on "Wow! Way to go! Nice machine for the right operation!! It's about time someone gave us that option!"?

Well said Clovis, thanks for the support. If I am blessed to get enough of these ordered, I could see a process of continous improvment. One thing I a debating is wether its cheaper to make new frame angles or tear down and blast the old metal. Another thing is this machine has several proprietary bearings that could be replaced with off the shelf bearings. Also would like to put some heavier guage metal but that might be tricky casue the additional weight may cause issues.

[vallyfarm]

There is a lot to be said for a smaller pull behind like the All-Crop to a smaller farmer that is running smaller/older equipment. Just having it fit into a building at the end of the day compared to having to put up a new "hanger" for the much bigger/taller mogern stuff can save $14,000 right off. Not having another engine and drivetrain to worry about can save another big lump of cash too. And, as many others have said, the quality of product can be the difference between income and hog feed. All that being said, I have run several combines, all 60's or older, and the ease od set-up and ability to adjust/repair on those All-Crops can make the price seem much more in line. Mike

[jwal10]

I used 2 allcrops for 10 years but....times change and we move on. A model A gleaner took no more room to store, actually less, easier to move between fields, had a 10 head, was self propelled and moved through the field 3 times faster, did just as good a job. Why would I limit myself to an outdated piece of equipment. I harvested grass seed, wheat, oats, barley, rape seed, alfalfa, lotus, peas, vetch, dill seed, red clover, ladino clover, sugar beet seed and combinations of these. Just as good of a sample. Why stay old school? Because it is cool, I enjoy the old harvestors. But time is money. I hope and wish anyone working on these old machines or a new one the best of luck but if I had to go back I would get a self proppelled harveaster. Why is it more feasable to do a pull type than self proppelled? Why do you think a self proppelled wears out more than a pull type? A bigger machine gets it done faster and less wear. The AC All-crop is a simple machine but has some irritating processes. Now a 90....that was a combine, auger header and 9'. Oh the good old days....James

[TomYaz]

>>"Why is it more feasable to do a pull type than self proppelled?"

What do you mean by "feasable"? Total cost of ownership, performance??


>>"The AC All-crop is a simple machine"

And for a small scale guy, simple is good. You wont need a machine shop to
repair it or send it to the dealer.

>>"A bigger machine gets it done faster"

True. But the fewer acres you have, the less relevant getting it done faster
becomes. I would never recommend an allcrop to a guy who has 100 acres or more to do at a time. Now if he had 100 acres consisting of 5 different crops to harvest at different times, I might.

>>"and less wear."
Debatable for sure. But for a small scale guy a pulltype has a lot less parts TO wear.

>>"Why would I limit myself to an outdated piece of equipment."

How is it "outdated"? Is more complicated better? Depends what you get out the additional expense of extra complication. Expensive extra doo-dads are great if the additional expense is paid back and more by harvesting thousands of acres. Not so much for small acreage.

Outdated? Just because its old doesnt mean its outdated. It depends on what it is used for. And It does just as good a threshing and cleaning job of todays machine, and its been said even better.

>>"Why do you think a self proppelled wears out more than a pull type?"

Who said that? On a self propelled there is simply more to wear out, and it usually costs a heck of a lot more to fix.

BTW I think those Gleaner A are pretty long in the tooth (1950's?) and "outdated" by your reasoning. Why not get a Gleaner Series 7???

Take this scenario:

A guy with a Deere 4400 with > 3000 hours bought for $6K and a rebuilt AllCrop combine. Each does 50 acres per year. Assume the time to take the harvest in is acceptable to the farmer for the AllCrop.

What do you think the total cost of ownership will be over the next 10 years between the two?

Again, Im not saying a rebuilt AllCrop is for everyone and every situation. But I do think there is a small niche where it could be of use. Last time I checked my database I had over 700 customers.

This one I am working on is for a gentleman farmer who doesnt want to deal
with a self-propelled. His test ran the allcrop in one of his small fields and gave me the ok to refurb it. Wants another for his 30 acres about an hour
away drive...so you see each situation is different. Choice is good!

Lastly, Why do you think they are still making standalone threshers and mini self propelled's as I have linked? Answer: There is a niche for them as well.