Combines AC cotton machines

tbran

Guest
AC quit the pickers in the 60's. The cotton STRIPPER was built into the 80's -82 I think. The AC bean counters hated them, they were used as a salvage machine in drought years, build em and ship em to Ark, Miss and Al and lA then truck them to TX and AZ etc the nest year. Again a case of a great product (many strippers are still running) but no effort into marketing. There was a AC blockman Clyde Hamer who lived for cotton products. He went to gins and got them to put in stick machines to accomodate stripper cotton for the customer he sold the stripper to. He then worked with univerity of Ark in plant and chemical research. He did this on his own with only the support of Felix Patterson who was his sales manager. No one else in the company knew what the heck cotton was except that it shrunk when washed. Their request for market funding fell on deaf ears. Now lets jump forward. Today a 6 row picker machine from Case or Deere cost $333,000. They last about 4-5 years. Most farms have 2-3-4 or these. They also cost about 5-10$ _ acre harvested to run and keep up, maybe more. You can do the math as to cost to the farmer. A common sense educator by the name of Bradly ran the Milan no til experiment station. He had the idea of ultra narrow row no til cotton harvested by a stripper (not the ones bound in bars now)which would cost about $150,000 and run 20 years and have virually no upkeep. You do the math again as to the bottom line profitibility. (A farmer who still grows stripper cotton quietly told me last year by running one picker and doing the rest with a couple of AC strippers he had put over a million bucks in his pocket in profit over what his brother in law did with the same acreage in the last 12 years. That ain't chicken change. His local gin will not except stripper cotton from anybody else because they make a mess of it. It is an art as much as a science. But doable.) A really strange thing then happened. Deere and Case came out with prototype strippers, both using old AC heads. Then from the top word came down that case and deere had given a huge grant to work on super staple cotton - for pickers. They then declared the stripper not feasable and canceled the program. Bradley went to work for Monsanto I think. Do you think this strangeIJ let us do a hypothetical. Suppose AGCO or some company revived the AC super stripper of which one was built. With 24-30' tilt head , twin continental saw_burr extractors side shift dump with basket packer etc. Then on the market side pay the gins a royalty to take stripper cotton, pay the universities a grant for research , and the chemical companies to kick in..... The possible demise of the cotton picker would break CIH and would be a serious blow to the green guys. Picker sales in the thousands at $100,000+ gross profit each is serious income. Oh well, just a science fiction story for a cold wet winter dayIJ - or could it be,,,,,
 

Cott

Guest
I currently run an 82' model 880 stripper, I have in past owned a 78' 860, and 83' tan interior 880. All purchased within the last 10 years. Very simple machines and very easy to work on. You can put 80 dollars in diesel in it grease a dozen grease joints and run all day. Essentially extractor is same as deere just smaller. I usually get better grades than neigbors running deere stippers. Just for note I farm in N. Alabama and am running Ultra narrow row cotton yielding over 1000 lbs. per acre through a machine that was designed to harvest high plains cotton yielding between 250 to 500lbs. One of only a few farmers running these machines. There are a few tricks that can be done to speed up machines and improve cleaning, but I would love to hear from someone who also knows some tricks to improving these machines. In my opinion one of the best designed pieces of equipment that AC made, just a little ahead of its time.
 

Cott

Guest
Excuse me, I meant I own a 81' 880 and did own a 82' 880. Very few tan interior 82's built. In general 880's in good shape were hard to find in Oklahoma, and Texas when I bought the stippers. AC only made the 880's from 80' to 82' and there were not a large amount produced. The 880 had the same cab as M2, l2, and was hydro with electrohydralic controls. I think the final drives and transmission were the same as on a hydro F2 or F3, and had the same 4cyl turbo engine. The only complaint about the 880's is that sorry 4 cyl engine, it turns to many rpm's and works to hard to make 95 hp, loves ether, and costs an arm and a leg to rebuild. I saw several 880's in Texas that owners replaced 4cyl motor with 6cyl from M2, they looked funny but I guess they worked I was always scared to buy one of these. I did talk to a guy in bells, tennessee that says he has seen an experimental Allis stripper that had twin extractors that AC built in the early 80's before AC scrapped the cotton program.
 

riceman

Guest
HMMMM. Bells TNIJ Tbran, this is in your neck of the woods. Ever been around this machineIJ
 

Cott

Guest
Don't remember the guys name from bells, at least 5 to 8 years ago I stopped buy his shop because he was buying and refurbishing strippers and resaling them. I was trying to get some tips on increasing capacity. I think he also had a pulling tractor.IJIJ
 

riceman

Guest
I worked on a wheat harvesting crew in 2000. Our first stop was Temple, OK. There was tons of the Allis strippers sitting everywhere. I saw no cotton being grown anywhere. I guess the wells dried up or something else happened, but it looked like the white gold had left the area. I don't remember seeing a gin anywhere. I didn't get to travel much at the start of harvest. Otherwise I probably would have gotten into trouble looking in farmers barns! The fellows I worked for were based about 5 miles from the northernmost cotton gin the US. Alden Kansas. That might have changed though.
 

Kevin_Alabama

Guest
I to run 2 880 Allis strippers in Northwest Alabama, very good machines,very little upkeep. I have had no engine problems, very lite on fuel and run like a sewing machine. This year I stripped 2.5 bales to acre in one field and 2 bales to acre in another. I planted liberty link cotton. I bought my 880's in Pond Creek OK. all the cotton there had played out because of the droughts they have been having. Very happy with my 880's here in this Green country.
 

tbran

Guest
Sorry , I do not know the units or persons in Bells. Will check around a little. I am amazed at the reports of 880's handling that amount of Cotton. In the 90's Deere's and Case's stippers could not do that nor get a quality sample, of course they did not want to either..
 

Cott

Guest
The key to running that much cotton through an 880 is speed. I can run about 3 mph, but my sample is horribly trashy. However if i stay between 2 and 2.5 mph it does a good job cleaning. I have sped my fans up somewhat, that helps some. Kevin did you have trouble dessicating your stalks, we had a horrible time trying to kill our plants.
 

PETE

Guest
From the threads below it appears this is another example of Allis Chalmers rescuing defeat from the brink of sucess. Reminds me of my wife whose philosophy is that there is no reason for calm when the situation calls for panic. Pete Hinrichsen
 
 
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