Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1544539
I must say the writing of this article did not go as planned, and it turned into a far more interesting story than I had ever imagined. Back in 2010, AGCO introduced their own draper head, the Model 9250. I had seen pictures of different brands (mainly MacDon) being used for wheat and other small grain harvesting, but flex head versions had been developed and were being used for soybean harvest. I had seen a few in fields here in Iowa, but it was a slow conversion away from the standard auger-based floating cutter bar head. I had wondered why this was even a thing. It seemed that drapers were something that were just for swathers to windrow certain crops. It wasn't until I saw a video of one in action on a Gleaner combine that it made sense. The machine had a quite large head on it and was going through a field of wheat at a pretty good pace. When an operator's view was shown, I noticed how the draper head brought the crop into the combine heads first. Anyone who had thrown bundles into a threshing machine or combined a crop out of a swath knew that is how you fed the machine -- heads first. At that moment, it all made sense to me. A few years ago, I was privileged to get to know Michael Enzmann, a former Gleaner engineer. Enzmann worked for Gleaner from 1967 until he left in 1989. In his time there, he was behind the design of the MH2, the 3 Series grain head and the hugger corn head, just to name a few. In our discussions, he showed me a picture of the first MacDon draper head to be put on a N7 Gleaner. Finally I asked him the back story for this. Gleaner had introduced the N Series rotary combine, and they were performing well in small grains but not to their full potential. During lab testing, they were placing binder bundles on a conveyor that fed into the combine. Tests proved that smooth feeding and putting the product head first into the combine would greatly increase efficiency. But how do you guarantee that the heads would feed first into the combine? Enzmann grew up on a small farm in northern Minnesota and recalled running a windrower for their oats when combined. The windrower would lay it down in a windrow with the heads all going one way, then after the crop was fit, the combine would harvest the crop, ensuring it was going in head first. He thought "If only you could put a draper head on a combine." At that time, the most prominent manufacturer of large head windrowers was MacDon in Manitoba, Canada. MacDon (formerly Killberry) wasn't new to the business, having built windrowers since the early-'50s. Not only did they build them for their own retail sales, but they also built units for other manufacturers as well, including a pull- type unit for Allis-Chalmers. Enzmann flew up there in 1983 to propose the idea of adapting a windrower head to a combine. MacDon had not done that before but was open to the idea. A year later, they contacted him and said they had a unit mounted on an 860 Massey Ferguson combine and invited him to come up to view it and see how it operated during testing. Michael was there Aug. 28-29, 1985. To make the head work, they added a third draper in the middle to bring the product to the center back to the combine and an auxiliary beater in the throat to assist feeding into the combine. The testing turned out exceptionally in a number of fields and crops. One observation was the head loss. It was substantially lower than what would have been thrown out by an auger on a conventional grain head. The first day, they tested oats and wheat on the second. Both days, the design proved what they were expecting -- a significant increase in capacity. One farmer who owned a 9700 White combine was so impressed that he said this design would improve capacity by as much as 30 percent. At the end of the visit, Enzmann recommended to Allis-Chalmers that they should work with MacDon and have one of these heads put on an N7 for testing. The following year, Gleaner had a 30-foot prototype draper head built by MacDon for testing. They were in Colorado running along the custom crew run by Bob Gattis, who was running several N7s with 27-foot Gleaner Series 3 heads. In the beginning, they had several issues with the prototype head. The biggest problem was the chain that drove the pump for the head's hydraulic system would not hold up for much time. Finally, a heavy-duty encased oil bath double chain was installed and the unit would now operate for more than just a few hours. The head was A-C's doomed draper dalliance By Jim Palmer Jr., Castalia, Iowa Continued on Page 41 6 OLD ALLIS NEWS