Am I going to hate this decision?

[brahamfireman]

Ditching the fingers for fighting extensions.  Anyone done it and regret it? I've been fighting every year to keep the fingers in time, or just going. seems at least once a year a rock or log gets in there and slams the fingers out of time, then things spiral quickly out of control. Floor sheet is banged up, fingers drop inside tube, then punch back out, currently the finger rod is bent and broke. 

20 foot 1020 head with air reel,  SCH sickle, good pans, good reel and fingers.  Beans feed fairly good, just sickle of dealing with the fingers. 

 

[acem]

Very common on rice headers. In fact it's listed as factory option for 810 headers. 

I want to try one myself.

[Dirt_Floor_Poor]

The best auger head I ever ran was a Hydraflex Deere. It was really hard to get foreign objects in the head because of the stone dam. You can replace all of the fingers in the center in 15 minutes. It’s doesn’t take any tools to replace the fingers themselves, you only need a torx bit to remove the access covers. Composite fingers that broke never caused any damage. 

[bitty]

Our 20' fingers have been eliminated and the extensions installed . I'm told that's the upgrade. 

[Mountain Heritage]

Why are you combining logs?  Good money in them I'm assuming in your area?  Rocks, I have lots of those, let us know if extensions work, I would install them if I can make money off the rocks! 🙃

[Binderoid]

I don’t know anything about an 810 header is why I’m asking: is there no slip clutch on the table auger? If there is enough torque  to drive a finger through the tube , the clutch is way too tight, or frozen. The clutch should be set in the neighborhood of 75 to 100 lb. feet as a nominal setting. Auger length and crop will determine the actual requirements.  You need to stall the auger a couple times in normal operation to get the correct adjustment for your conditions. You  want the clutch tight enough to just carry the load. Any rock that won’t fit between the table and the auger should stall the auger, not dent it. All I see with your update is all the rubbish you pick up will now make it all the way into the combine instead of busting up the auger fingers. Of course, the preceding is assuming that the head is equipped with safety devices. 

[brahamfireman]

1 hour ago, Binderoid said:

I don’t know anything about an 810 header is why I’m asking: is there no slip clutch on the table auger? If there is enough torque  to drive a finger through the tube , the clutch is way too tight, or frozen. The clutch should be set in the neighborhood of 75 to 100 lb. feet as a nominal setting. Auger length and crop will determine the actual requirements.  You need to stall the auger a couple times in normal operation to get the correct adjustment for your conditions. You  want the clutch tight enough to just carry the load. Any rock that won’t fit between the table and the auger should stall the auger, not dent it. All I see with your update is all the rubbish you pick up will now make it all the way into the combine instead of busting up the auger fingers. Of course, the preceding is assuming that the head is equipped with safety devices. 

1020 head.....So no experience with flight extensions?

[Binderoid]

11 minutes ago, brahamfireman said:

1020 head.....So no experience with flight extensions?

No, but i have seen them in the 503 parts book for hard to feed crops … they’ve been around a long time. I have wished for years every time I do wheat that I had pursued that. I always try to cut the straw long, which always leave  a pile of wheat under the fingers; then It doesn’t feed worth a dang unless you run a heap of straw through to keep it swept clean. There is no question what you are doing would help with feeding; but I don’t know now that you took the fingers out.. extensions may just push the crop back and forth during light feeding until the ball gets big enough for the chain to grab it . May want to consider small paddles at the ends of your extensions … parallel with the axis of the auger tube. At least every half revolution it’s throwing toward the chain.

[Binderoid]

I don’t know where the heck I came up with 810.

[acem]

Probably because I mentioned seeing it in the 810 manual.

They were common on rice headers before drapers and strippers became the norm. Rice is a heavy thick crop when harvesting if that matters.