Combines Air Reels

Colin I think that an air reel wouldn't be of much use to you. We have one here in Australia and from our experience they work best in lighter crops. They work well with lentils that have a large leaf area and are not heavy to blow. In standing wheat anything over about 12-15 bags_acre and there is to much bulk to blow in the front of the machine. We use a pickup reel most of the time, and only use the air reel on specialty crops. The worst is at the throat of the elevator where the crop will slide forward as well as going into the elevator. They work well with flex fronts as you can push the material back of the knife, which you can't do with a finger reel as when the table flex's up it will cut the end off your reel fingers if set to low. Basically the work well on crops that have a large leaf_head surface area to catch the air stream and also crops that have a lighter seed. I assume that you wheat is on the ground and therefore not very dry, so it would be heavy to blow and inclined to stick to the platform. Also you would have trouble getting the air stream behind the plant to blow it in. Sorry about not sounding very positive. Ours cost us about $6,000 a couple of years ago for a 30 footer.

thanks for the info.

Hey Bob we run a Crary air reel in our beans. We really seem to notice a difference with feeding the air gives it a nice even feed and doesn't allow for slugging. Also in the 2 years we've run them we average about 3 bushels more an acre. It's great to see those beans going in the head instead of the ground. They cost about 8,000 bucks but it is well worth it. I wouldbn't use anything but now. They have a web site I will include it with this message.

Recently bought a Crary. Close to the end of our summer season so it has only done about 40 hours and I can't answer any durability questions but performance wise it is excellent. Combination of pick up tynes and air makes that huge a difference in pulse crops that I hope I "never have to go back" to a conventional type reel.

Check out Advanced Wind-Reel Systems at www.awsairculture.com They now offer a blower mounted directly on 2100 and2300 rotarys.

I run a JD 224 Flex head with a Crary Air Finger Reel. In thinner beans the air pushes everything in and you can maintain a good speed without loosing any beans from falling back out. Also rocks that get hung up on the cutterbar are more easily seen since the air blows the beans in around the rock. The air finger reel also is good if you want to use the flex head on small grains. I never have since I have a 936D with fingers for my small grains but was told that the air helps blow the crop back to the auger - especially on thin crops. I would never combine beans without it!

well put sir, i have also ran the crarry-air reel. 25ft flex head. works really well in the short crops such as navy beans,garbonzo beans,and those short thin soybeans that were in south dakota last yr.It may be a bit dirty unless you have the fans in the feeder house (i.e. 9610 )but for feeding,,,its darn hard to beat. I never could tell a difference between them in tall beans,and the newer ones are alot better than the older ones. Crarry has a good product and good support.my thoughts,take it or leave it. good luck,,mit9750

I find there are definite yield savings but more over productivity is greatly increased. I find the air keeps material feeding in even, no slugging, faster ground speed. I run an AWS by far the simplest system on the market fan driven right up on the combine. I had a Crary previously very hard on the header reverser and I also found the reel required alot of maintenance.

Jeff, what is this AWS you speak ofIJ Who is the manufacturerIJ You say the fan mounts on the combine it's selfIJ If thats the case how do you disconnnect it to set the head offIJ Does it create alot of dust harvesting soybeansIJ I am really interested in hearing more, as where I am from (EC Kansas) we generally have alot of short beans to harvest and find it very aggavating to see the shorter ones get clipped and fall out of the header. We run a 9600 with a 925 flex head and are thinking of trading combines and headers, saw this and thought it might be an option we would be interested in it but don't think I have heard of the AWS (at least it doesn't ring a bell to me) Thanks in advance for the information.

There is a picture of one under PHOTOGRAPHS.