120 Ft Combine Sprayer

120 ft combine sprayer COMBINES Modifications 10-2-7 "With our 120-ft. combine sprayer and a 120-ft. sprayer we built for our tractor two years ago, we can spray a ¢ section of land in under 2 hrs.," says Tom Henry, Westhope, N. Dak., who credits his brother Don with the idea for mounting the king-size sprayer on the combine. It helped them avoid the purchase of another tractor to power the second sprayer, which they needed to get their spraying done quickly on days when winds are quiet. "Our combine sits idle for 9 mos. so it was a good way to get additional use out of it. Also, we needed a sprayer to spray our winter wheat in May while our tractor was tied up seeding spring crops," says Henry. The combine sprayer is built around a Bish Deere-to-N7 Gleaner header adapter (built by Harvey Bish, Giltner, Neb. 68841, ph 402 849-2261) and mounts directly to the feederhouse just like a combine header. It's locked into the fully raised position to give about a 29-in. boom height for spraying. The sprayer was built so that it can also be mounted on a tractor 3-pt. by hooking a tractor to the front side. "We carry 500 gal. of water directly in front of the feederhouse so that the loaded weight of the sprayer is about 7,500 lbs., roughly equivalent to that of a 12-row cornhead. In operation, the center section and the tank are carried by the combine and the wings "float" independently on 15-in. car tires supported by two air shocks. A small tire at either end of the boom is in the air most of the time but supports a breakaway section when going through drainage ditches, to keep nozzles out of the dirt," says Henry. The center sections of the sprayer are built with 5-in. square box wall tubing and the outer 20-ft. of spring-loaded breakaway section from 3-in. square tubing. In transport the inner wings fold back beside the combine and the outer breakaway wings fold back forward for a total road width of 24 ft. The center section is 22 ft. wide and each wing is 49 ft. The boom sections of the sprayer are controlled from the cab by electric solenoids. Electrically controlled 23-ft. "cheater" nozzles mount on the end of each wing to spray around edges of fields, fences, and high-line poles. The switches to control these along with the controls for the paper marker, are mounted on the hydrostatic control lever so they never have to remove their hand from the lever. "We also have two 23-ft. cheater nozzles mounted at the ends of the center section. When we pull into a field we can turn these nozzles on, along with the center boom, and spray approximately 60 ft. for opening up the fields where there is only 40 ft. between the roadway and high-line poles," says Henry. The 110 flat-fan nozzles on the boom are set up on 30-in. spacing. "Visibility from the combine is excellent. We can see all the nozzles except for four directly in the center of the machine. The Gleaner seems to handle the load better than our Deere 4630 tractor, which is equipped with our other 120-ft. sprayer," says Henry. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Tom Henry, P.O. Box 1, Westhope, N. Dak. 58793 (ph 701 245-6513).

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