Threshing machine

Stripper header photo. Work from the view to build one of plywood?????
http://www.shelbourne.com/harvesting/stripper-header

There should be enough info at the Shelbourne site to build something similar. One could even inquire about purchasing stripper fingers from them.

http://www.shelbourne.com/harvesting...design-history
http://www.shelbourne.com/harvesting...er-header/faqs

I see by the company web site that a John Deere dealer local to me sells the products. I expect they would also sell the replacement fingers allowing one to build their own stripping header unit. Since they are of stainless steel I would expect them to cost plenty. How many do each of you want to experiment with? lol

Just called a replacement stripper finger dealer and asked for some rough information as I didn't want to take up a lot of his time. The replacement fingers are about 24 inches long and sell somewhere around $42.

Thinking that you would need at least three on the rotating unit you would be looking at at least $150 for a two foot wide stripper head plus other material meaning over $200.

Should I start work on a lawn mower engine powered prototype? Just kidding--much too cold out.

I made a grass seed harvester, and all the stripper head consisted of was string trimmer line, the main rotating shaft was a shaft with 4 flats welded on them with holes ever 1 to 2 inches in them and the trimmer string was put through and the ends back through the loop, leaving two strings per hole, ran with a small gas motor and the unit was such that it had a box with a screen over it to let the air movement out,

http://www.ag-renewal.com/FLAIL-VAC.htm

about half way down, on page,
http://reveg-catalog.tamu.edu/11-Seed%20Harvesting.htm
this is close to mine,
http://www.prairiehabitats.com/pull.html
http://www.prairiehabitats.com/Images/PTSS_Brochure.pdf

I never tried it on wheat but I do not know why it would not work, you would have to clean the seed and chaff but I harvestd many acres of blue grama and other grass seed with it,

I got a lot of pictures of the building of it if one is intrested,

I've been obsessed with the same issue over the last few days. I'm looking to grow about an acre of wheat but I'm looking for a way to thresh. I figured a threshing machine would be cheap but quite the contrary. I also saw the plans from Rosdale Press, but they are pretty vague. I was thinking about building a small drum with wire loops, fingers, or teeth strips on it. Then I would lay the garin heads against the spinning drum while the seeds are ripped off. I'm assuming that this is how the treadle threshers work but I've never seen one up close.

The string brush concept looks really good. I would really appreciate it if farminghandyman could post some of the assembly pictures of what you built.

Thanks!

Small Farm Journal has an ad in the back for a treadle operated small thresher for $650. The address is in Tennesee. They claim 250lbs. of wheat per hour. I'm tempted to buy one just to have it.

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Oak Harbor, Ohio

http://thelaubachermarriagechronicle.blogspot.com/

The AC 66 like Agmantoo has is the one to try and find. They will combine most anything if set up right.

Bob

Hi , After reading this thread , I had to register. I have Gene Logsdon's book , and emailed Rodale press about the homestead sized thresher they were building . The info is sketchy at best , but I think I'll be able to build this thing . Maybe I can be of some help to somebody




In constant pursuit of the old ways , ... though sometimes I wonder why.

OK, flame suit is on!

I know this thread is old, but it comes up often in Google searches, so I may as well update it.

Here is a nifty little threshing machine that would work well for up to an acre, I suppose. With a few extra bodies helping, you could do more. You don't have to build it exactly as planned - - I see many areas that could be improved (knowing what I know about modern combines). for instance, I would use an old belt-driven squirrel cage furnace fan before I bothered to build that "paddle" fan! Lots of improvements can be done in the "separator" section as well. Oh well - it is small, and it is simple, and that is what many small scale grain growers want.

http://www.slideshare.net/seedtray/a...r-smallholders

http://www.scribd.com/doc/84007113/A...-Small-Holders

A Homebuilt Threshing Machine For Smallholders
A design manual for a small scale threshing machine
By Stephen Simpson

The home brewing place I go to have grain grinders powered by a variable speed electric drill.I would think you would build a small flail from the ideas already presented and power it that way.I think the "chicken pluckers" would work or even a wire brush .I'm not sure I would want to put much money into something I'd only use 1-2 days a year.
Do you have more time or more money? The less you spend the more you work,the more you spend the less you work!

This discussion comes up about once each year. My opinion is that the lack of reasonably priced new (not antique) equipment is the single most limiting thing that holds the idea of homesteading at the backwoodsy, amateur level. Here's a link that shows most of the small to medium sized threshing equipment on the market today--and some idea of the costs. http://www.ferrari-tractors.com/smallscale.htm The links from the home tab in this website are very interesting, too.

Indeed, I think someone with some ag-engineering and welding experience could brainstorm some ideas and put together equipment to do the job the homesteader requires. I'd love to contribute some of my own ideas, but fair warning: I usually end up on a soapbox about rethinking the concept of threshing: that of blowing the grain against a stationary flail, instead of moving the flail against the grain.....

Anyway, I think all the equipment for homesteading needs to be re-thunk, from tractor, to cultivator, to thresher, to material handler. Okay, I'm off my soapbox....

geo

get on U Tubes, and type in Threshing wheat, and scroll down and see what they have. Youll find hand operated units.

It was very common for threshers to be jointly-owned or to belong to a third party who hired a threshing crew and traveled around during harvest. People who are interested in planting small plots of grain might be able to find a threshing co-op in their area.

So much interest in threshers, when old combines are so cheap and available? I got an old Massey 760 free with my land. Previous owner paid $700 for it, working condition, used it to harvest a quarter section. These massive self-propelled machines were meant for thousands of acres a year but there is no reason not to use them for a couple.

If your field is too tight you can cut with a swather (also just a couple hundred bucks) put on a pickup header and pitch the cut grain into the parked combine. That is pretty much a thresher.

Combining is better as it keeps more organic matter in the soil . Straw is returned to the field. Holds moisture, suppresses weeds. Get a combine

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I use a Allis Chalmer Gleaner model72. It will seperate/thresh anything from wheat, okra seed, aven tobacco seed.....but such items as okra podsand tobacco seed the manuel recomends stationary work.
I sold my CII gleaner to a fella that uses it for a stationary corn sheller, took of the grain head, built a hopper and shells corn he snaps to grind into meal.
You can buy a Gleaner pull type, seem them as low as $200...lot of them around for parts...not to complicated....lotta belts. If times got too bad the could be set up to run of a electric motor, old car turning a belt pto, even a horse power could run a pto to run it as a stationary thresher. They even pull'em with horses and mule now a days!

Id like to find a gleaner pull type. I have 2 66 AC ACs ones junk for parts, and the other works. Needs a new batt. I had a new canvas made for it, Had new closures for the hand holes under the auger, and seems like there are 2 of them. I don't combine anything anymore, so Ive got no use for them,. Round here, neither does anyone else. Likely either junk them, or leave them when I move.

All Crop is basically a Gleaner.....They just dropped the All Crop off of the self propelled. I only sold mine cause there wasn't and extra hand around when I needed it.
I can work on the pull type myself. I can stand on the ground and unclogg it,stead off having to crawl under the thing, find somebody scrawny to crawl in it, and it's easier to turn the guts with a wrench on the pull type. I find it just as good for combining oats and wheat as the self propelled , and it isn't hard to hook to another tractor and keep a hitting it.
I got my eyes out for a binder, awfull scarce in this part of the world. I've seen one in these two adjoing counties, and a livery/mule dealer/farm supply owned that one. I like to feed oat straw, gather it earlier with a binder, pile it in cotton trailers, and put under shed, wired secure from rats, might be just as easy and thrifty as combining and bailing.