Vintage Ads

[Loadstar]

Urs, that video you posted was interesting. Looks like a lot of manpower and small machinery to do the same job that one combine does these days. But I guess that is progress. Here is another pull type swather shown in a Minneapolis Moline ad from 1950. 

 

[U-C]

18 hours ago, Loadstar said:

Urs, that video you posted was interesting. Looks like a lot of manpower and small machinery to do the same job that one combine does these days. But I guess that is progress. Here is another pull type swather shown in a Minneapolis Moline ad from 1950. 

 

awesome Minneapolis Swather ad I think this one his the one pictured 

Here is are two pics of a Rapid Motormower model R with a grain harvesting attachment:

[Loadstar]

14 hours ago, U-C said:

awesome Minneapolis Swather ad I think this one his the one pictured 

Here is are two pics of a Rapid Motormower model R with a grain harvesting attachment:

 

Looks like the same Mini swather alright. Also looks like the material is blocking on  the cutterbar as you can see the reel momentarily stall every time it sweeps over the knife. I can see green material in that crop which tends to block up on the cutterbar. You would likely hear the knife drive hammering too. If it was anything like my dad's old Massey swather it would eventually break the wooden pitman arm. 

The Massey 35 I got in 1988 was a far superior design. Laid a nice swath too. 88 was the hottest and driest year ever and we had a short crop. Yet I managed to make a swath in this barley field with the 35. 

 

[Big Bud guy]

On ‎4‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 12:09 AM, Loadstar said:

You must have had some serious hills to cause a side draft problem. I never had that problem except for once in mud. The 21 foot Massey was really pulling sideways behind the tractor and that was on the level. Only happened once. There was a stabilizer kit built here in Sask. by Haukass manufacturing they say worked well to control side draft. Haukass stabilizer

I don't know if you consider your land hilly but from what I have seen on your videos, we consider that flat.  I picked up a JD 290 12 years ago just to play around with and make some swaths in front my 95.  Used it once but then I converted the 95 over to straight cut.  So now it sits.  Here is a picture taken in 1966.  Grandpa is sitting on the swather and great grandpa standing next to it.  The still newish 510 in the background does not have a cab and wouldn't get one until 1976 when we bought a 2nd 510 that had factory cab and AC. 

[Big Bud guy]

8 hours ago, Loadstar said:

Looks like the same Mini swather alright. Also looks like the material is blocking on  the cutterbar as you can see the reel momentarily stall every time it sweeps over the knife. I can see green material in that crop which tends to block up on the cutterbar. You would likely hear the knife drive hammering too. If it was anything like my dad's old Massey swather it would eventually break the wooden pitman arm. 

That video made me cringe.  If he didn't have a broken pitman by the next round he would by the end of the day. 

[IHhogfarmer]

This may not quite qualify as a “Vintage Ad” but since we have been on pull type combines/windrowers I thought this would fit.

I’ve never seen one in action but it would be cool to see that Gleaner N series combine and 51 ft?  Draper header in action. In 1992 A honey bee Draper header would be a faster way to cut your grain if you were in a big hurry. I would imagine they were used in flat, wide open wheat country especially

 

 

[Loadstar]

On 4/2/2018 at 8:44 PM, IHhogfarmer said:

This may not quite qualify as a “Vintage Ad” but since we have been on pull type combines/windrowers I thought this would fit.

I’ve never seen one in action but it would be cool to see that Gleaner N series combine and 51 ft?  Draper header in action. In 1992 A honey bee Draper header would be a faster way to cut your grain if you were in a big hurry. I would imagine they were used in flat, wide open wheat country especially

 

Honeybee headers still very popular here. Never seen one on a pull type combine. I've seen pictures of a double header mounted on the front and side of a two wheel drive tractor. Huge width, maybe 50 feet. I'll try to find the ad. For now here is one of our most popular and best selling swathers from the 1970s. The Versatile model 400. 

[dale560]

51 minutes ago, Loadstar said:

Honeybee headers still very popular here. Never seen one on a pull type combine. I've seen pictures of a double header mounted on the front and side of a two wheel drive tractor. Huge width, maybe 50 feet. I'll try to find the ad. For now here is one of our most popular and best selling swathers from the 1970s. The Versatile model 400. 

Pic of a 400 in use . The absolute worst days of my teenage years were spent on that devil machine

[db1486]

On 02/04/2018 at 9:44 PM, IHhogfarmer said:

This may not quite qualify as a “Vintage Ad” but since we have been on pull type combines/windrowers I thought this would fit.

I’ve never seen one in action but it would be cool to see that Gleaner N series combine and 51 ft?  Draper header in action. In 1992 A honey bee Draper header would be a faster way to cut your grain if you were in a big hurry. I would imagine they were used in flat, wide open wheat country especially

 

 

We could've used that 51 foot header last year the way some of the crops were lol.

Thats a neat ad. Someday I'd really ike to find a honeybee header to put on our pull types just like in the ad

[IHhogfarmer]

db1486 hope you find one I would like to see it in action. 

Honeybees aren’t really popular around here... if there would be they wouldn’t be as big as the drapers in the ad. Mac don headers are very common around here. I have seen Honeybees on tractor house but not of that vintage most are from the 2000 to 2010 range. 

[dale560]

Didn’t honeybee make new Holland’s Draper heads. Years ago they started the Draper head revolution down here then McDon took over.

[Loadstar]

9 hours ago, dale560 said:

Pic of a 400 in use . The absolute worst days of my teenage years were spent on that devil machine

 

That one has the end delivery table for laying two swaths side by side. Same as my John Deere (Macdon).  I put in a lot of hours and acres on a similar machine to the Versatile 400. It was a Massey 655. They sold a lot of them too. Some of the first hydrostatic drives around here and they were pretty good compared to what they replaced. Compared to what we have today, not so nice. 

[dale560]

4 minutes ago, Loadstar said:

That one has the end delivery table for laying two swaths side by side. Same as my John Deere (Macdon).  I put in a lot of hours and acres on a similar machine to the Versatile 400. It was a Massey 655. They sold a lot of them too. Some of the first hydrostatic drives around here and they were pretty good compared to what they replaced. Compared to what we have today, not so nice. 

We would start swathing the early crop. Rye, oats barley and about the first 500 acres of wheat. The 400 would get hot on the operator station and when you shifted canvases  they would stick after a few days.  Dads was a later 400 so it had the motors on the drive chains no connecting belts. It seemed to be tougher on chains than the older ones.Nobody else would run the swather so I got ordered to. Used to run it from the end of July until the middle of August . My birthday is aug 4 so I always got to spend it on that thing. So that is probably where my hatred of the 400 comes from. Dad bought a Heston pull type in the mid 90s and got rid of the versatile for a 4000 ihc.

[Big Bud guy]

We had two Versatile 400s along with a IH 4000 back in the day.  The 4000 was twice the swather the Versatiles were.  The 400s might have been a decent swather when they first came out in the late 60s but Versatile stuck to the mediocre design way too long.  The 4400 wasn't much different.  All you got with that was a nice cab and 4 wheels.  There was a time when Versatile when they probably had over half the market share around here.  But John Deere, Hesston, and later Macdon just killed them with heavier and more durable designs. 

[U-C]

I reckon this Versatile Swather Generation came a little late then!!

 

[U-C]

I was wondering how good were Versatile's Pull Type Swathers? Here is a front cover of a brochure that I found online

 

[Loadstar]

59 minutes ago, U-C said:

I was wondering how good were Versatile's Pull Type Swathers? Here is a front cover of a brochure that I found online

 

Nice brochure for the model 10 Versatile. Their pull type swathers were equally popular here and I'd guess there are still a few working. I have no experience running them as I always had the Massey 35. But watching the neighbours cutting at high speed with their Versatiles I figured they must be a pretty decent swather. My uncle had an 18 foot model 10 pull type as his last swather but I never got to run that one. 

I don't have a picture of the model 10 Versatile but I do have this one which is exactly the same 655 Massey that I ran for years. It was fine until we started growing canola. Then it did not have sufficient swath opening to let that big swath through. 

[lightninboy]

10 hours ago, Loadstar said:

That one has the end delivery table for laying two swaths side by side. Same as my John Deere (Macdon).  

I didn't know you could do that with a Versatile. Maybe it was just the later ones. I recall Hesston and New Holland could do it but certainly not the IH 4000. Also there were factory or aftermarket double-swath canvasses that went behind headers.

 

What was so bad about running a Versatile 400 compared to other swathers?

[dale560]

1 minute ago, lightninboy said:

I didn't know you could do that with a Versatile. Maybe it was just the later ones. I recall Hesston and New Holland could do it but certainly not the IH 4000. Also there were factory or aftermarket double-swath canvasses that went behind headers.

 

What was so bad about running a Versatile 400 compared to other swathers?

Everything. Just kidding. If you were in nice clean crop it wasn’t bad. But back in the 80s without a cab the barley would either have rust or black smut. So you were red or black depending on the disease. Then you would have kochia spots so you would be green at the end of day. When you headed down wind the mosquitos and bugs would eat you alive. The pitman arm was a weak point , the wheel chains and axles were a maintenance problem. The ford engine was a bright spot. When I say run a swather. We had a swather transport and would load up go to field myself. So day usually started at 6.30 am. Gassed up and took lunch box and water jug and would be gone until 9:30 pm. Would usually shoot for 100 some acres a day. We usually ended up swathing about the first 1800 acres of crop before we started to go straight as the wheat ripened. It wasn’t bad enough swathing our own but we did some custom swathing of rye and oats also. They would send me out with enough replaceable parts so I didn’t have to come home either. Dads 79 400 had the double swath and it also had a embossed high back black vinyl bucket seat. You know how hot black gets in the sun. When dad ran the swather he actually had 2 18 ft 400 they would run together but got the newer 20 ft and I was in charge. Can still remember water jug  full of barley beards and dust and wiping it off to take a drink of warm water. Cab you tell I hated that 400? There were some of those Massey’s like Ralph posted , John Deere’s and 4000 and older Ihc swather but about half were versatile in the area. The table float was horrible on a versatile also.

 

[Loadstar]

1 hour ago, lightninboy said:

I didn't know you could do that with a Versatile. Maybe it was just the later ones. I recall Hesston and New Holland could do it but certainly not the IH 4000. Also there were factory or aftermarket double-swath canvasses that went behind headers.

 

What was so bad about running a Versatile 400 compared to other swathers?

Actually even the older series Versatile, the 103 self propelled was available with double swath table. I remember seeing a neighbour working with one. Still the Wisconsin V4 power and I don't think they were hydrostatic drive yet. 

You guys complain about driving the 400 Versatile but I bet they were a big improvement over what came before. At least they had the hydrostatic drive and steering wheel. I date back to the days of planetary drives and lever steering. So combined with the problems you mentioned on the Versatile, I also had the task of keeping that troublesome planetary drive system working. Get the drum brakes adjusted enough that they didn't drag but not so loose that you lost reverse. It was a challenge and I sure don't miss driving the 504 White (Cockshutt) swather. I don't have an ad handy but this Hesston from the late sixties is very similar. 

[Big Bud guy]

10 hours ago, U-C said:

I reckon this Versatile Swather Generation came a little late then!!

 

About 5-8 years too late.  There are only two of those I know of around here.  Yet at one time you almost couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a 103 or 400.  That’s how far they fell off.  Another thing that hurt Versatile as time went on was they never developed a hay header.  Lot guys in Montana and other places had livestock in addition to farming and needed a hay header for hay and the draper for small grains.  Versatile tried offering a crimper attachment for the 4400 and but that didn’t make up for deficiency in the header.   I’m not sure but they might have had a hay header on the 4700/4750 or maybe it was the header off their bi directional. 

[lightninboy]

See, on a Hesston you could shift one draper over and double-swath without a table attachment.

[dale560]

42 minutes ago, Big Bud guy said:

About 5-8 years too late.  There are only two of those I know of around here.  Yet at one time you almost couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a 103 or 400.  That’s how far they fell off.  Another thing that hurt Versatile as time went on was they never developed a hay header.  Lot guys in Montana and other places had livestock in addition to farming and needed a hay header for hay and the draper for small grains.  Versatile tried offering a crimper attachment for the 4400 and but that didn’t make up for deficiency in the header.   I’m not sure but they might have had a hay header on the 4700/4750 or maybe it was the header off their bi directional. 

McDon and Cereal swathers really took off about the time the 4700 came out. The 400 had a hay head or they called them 330s with a hay head.

[dale560]

I know the 400 swathers were innovative for their time. And were a machine you should have traded every 5 years. The one job on the farm of any and all I did was run that 400. If it would have been my crop it maybe would have eased the pain but the most horrible time of my teen years were on that stupid thing. It probably coincided that my birthday was always spent on that dang thing. One time in 88 I was swathing neighbors rye along the hiway.A Dutch or Norwegian tv station interviewed me about the drought going on. I had just fixed a hydraulic leak in field before they showed up and was grease head to toe. Must have looked really well on tv.

[Loadstar]

2 hours ago, lightninboy said:

See, on a Hesston you could shift one draper over and double-swath without a table attachment.

 

The old Versatile 103 from the late sixties had that same style shifting table. I did not see many of them because for most small farms an 18 or 20 foot swath was plenty big enough for the combines of the day. 

This 501 Cockshutt pull type is exactly like the one my uncle had and I swathed a few acres for him. It was after working with that  one that sold me on the design of the swather when I went on to buy my Massey 35 which was pretty much the same design. No more pitman to rattle and break. Just a short "dog bone" and eccentric pulley on the end of the knife driven by a belt. I didn't like the end delivery or self contained hydraulics on the Cockshutt but my Massey 35 didn't have those.