Home-Built Down-Corn Reel

Home-Built Down-Corn Reel COMBINES Accessories 24-2-36 Last fall a lot of my corn was blown down completely flat during a bad windstorm. The down corn wouldn't feed into my corn head so, out of desperation, I designed my own down-corn reel. It works perfect and cost me only the time to build it. I used the center tube, mounting arms, and several of the spokes from a batt reel off an old 20-ft. wheat table. The tube was just the right length for my combine's 8-row corn head. I added several 16-in. wide, 24-in. long paddles which I made from continuous belting off a conveyor. I positioned the paddles and spokes over the row snouts, instead of the rows, so as not to impede the harvest of standing corn. The reel is driven by a hydraulic motor from the wheat table and is manually raised and lowered by a pair of come-alongs attached to the back of the corn head, one at each end. I also designed a quick and easy way to lift a full barrel of oil out of my pickup and move it into my shop or over to an irrigation engine site using my loader tractor. I welded a 16-in. length of chain to each of the two screw-in lids on top of the barrel. To lift the barrel out of the pickup I simply screw in each lid and then bolt the end of one chain to the end of the other chain. The same lids are found on most sizes of drums and can be used over and over again. (Dale Orman, 1300 Timber Run Dr., St. Louis, Mo. 63146 ph 314 434-7645)

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