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Header Paddlewheel Picks Up Down Corn
"An engineer friend of mine who worked for Deere told me it's the best design he'd ever seen for picking up down corn," says Kansas farmer Bob Hasenkamp about the header "paddlewheel" he built last fall to pick up down corn.
He came up with the idea to help a neighbor whose crop was down. "It was such a mess you
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Header Paddlewheel Picks Up Down Corn COMBINES Down Corn 19-1-40 "An engineer friend of mine who worked for Deere told me it's the best design he'd ever seen for picking up down corn," says Kansas farmer Bob Hasenkamp about the header "paddlewheel" he built last fall to pick up down corn.
He came up with the idea to help a neighbor whose crop was down. "It was such a mess you couldn't even see the rows," he says. "When I started helping him combine, I had to stop every 25 yards to clear the head."
That's when Hasenkamp and a local machinist devised their unique solution.
Similar in concept to "spider wheel" type down corn "picker uppers" that have been featured in FARM SHOW has over the years, the new paddlewheel has some ad-vantages over other units.
The paddles turn at a slow, 10 rpm's which helps prevent wrapping.
To build the paddlewheel, Hasenkamp used parts off a junked Massey combine.
Paddles were cut from 1/2-in thick rubber conveyor belting and are 8 in. wide by 2 ft. long. They bolt to metal brackets made from 8-in. wide flat metal plate and pieces of 1 1/2-in dia. pipe mounted on a 1 3/8-in. pipe that runs the width of the head.
The paddlewheel is belt-driven from a 10-in. dia. pulley fitted to the cross auger's drive shaft.
The paddles rotate in a 4-ft. circumference, with four just brushing the snouts of the Massey four-row (30-in.) header. The other four rotate just above the row.
"With two paddles per row everything feeds nicely into the cross auger," Hasenkamp notes.
For added pulling power, Hasenkamp put new splash links on the combine's gathering chains and welded serrated sickle bar sections on each side of the outer rows. The sections extend halfway out over the middle of the row with the back side of the sickle section butting up against the splash links. "That way, whatever comes up either gets fed through or cut off and pushed out the snap rollers," he says.
"I cut 66 acres of the badly down corn with the paddlewheel," Hasenkamp says. "It was still slow going, but I never had to get out of the combine once to clear the head."
The invention, in which he invested about $150, is adaptable to any head and row spacing, he notes. He's looking into patenting the attachment and would like to find a manufacturer to produce it.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bob Hasenkamp, Box 880, Soldier, Kan. 66540 (ph 913 868-2441).
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