Combines Gordon Bar Update please

[Chuckm]

search for "Gordon Bars", there are several threads on that. Right below there is a thread entitled "Feedback on rotor question" that has some information about them.

 

[Old_Pokey]

Unfortunatly I cant say anything about the crops you raise, but we just put a full set on our 1680 and ran one whole season in tall fescue grass. We also purchased a set of helical concaves and ran them with the bars. So far we are 100% satisfied with the results. They really move the material through the machine, but with the added bar to crop contact it still had plenty thresh and seperation ability. Also we were able to run a much slower rotor rpm. The helical concaves have the crossbars at about the same angle as the gorden bars sit on the rotor, so crop gets threshed at a truer 90degree angle to the material flow than with standard concaves. Putting them on the rear of the rotor also, greatly reduced the amount of busted up chaff and straw pieces on the chaffer. For us Marvin was very fast at getting them shipped. He had them on the truck at the end of the same day we ordered them. They come with instructions that are clear and understandable. Ours came with new bolts and nuts and they went on very easily. I was told its not nesissary to weigh them, but I did anyway, and installed them as pairs according to weight and it kept perfect balance on the rotor. I will be running some red clover seed later with them and look forward to seeing what they do there. I doubt that is the info you wanted, but its the best I can do now.

 

[dumfarmer]

Thanks for the update. Sounds pretty good. Keep the thoughts coming (as time allows.) Thanks.

 

[farm41]

I also have tall fescue and am very interested in your results with the gordon bars. Could you please post your rotor speeds before and after the gordon barsIJ Also, if you know it, your percentage clean out before and after. I am in the south willamette valley, and harvest tall fescue, wheat, sugar beets, and this year white clover too.

 

[theredgreenshow]

I installed 20 threshing bars in my 2388 this year and I am happy with the results. I have custom threshed about 300 acres of seed wheat this year and I have very little crack and fewer unthreshed heads. It seems to use a little less fuel too.

 

[redman]

I've used gorden bars in tall fescue ,perennial ryegrass and wheat for 3 years now and love them. I think they help get the seed out quicker and ,yes , reduce your rotor speed at times.Every year is different and some varieties of perennial ryegrass call for faster rotor speeds to help break up "doubles" that can happen. They always seem to do the trick though.

 

[Old_Pokey]

Sure. As you know this was a pretty much typical year for weather, so I think the setting comparison should be pretty accurate. First, I must point out we do use growth regulator. This year we were a little late on the app, but it still did some good. We run 12' mac don swathers. The windrow is layed out approximately 96". And even though I'm somewhat hard on the swather reels running so close to the ground and the guard hold downs, I get a clean cut in all directions no matter what way the crop went down. I have several pics posted on redpowermagazine.com if you wish to see them. You might have to search a bit though as they were posted about 2 weeks ago in the coffe shop. We hire a 2001 2388 to run with us so I had a good comparison machine in the same field. Without the gorden bars, our normal operating rotor speed was minimum 600. This year the 2388 was running 650 empty, and loaded to 600. lots of attempts have been made to run slower, but depending on the machine, have had problems seperating the seed and also loading the chaffer heavy to one side. Concaves are run at the same clearence as standard concaves. We run at about a 1_2" or so closed from the grates. With the gorden bars, I ran as low as 450 empty for a short time and had "no" or at least none that we could find, rotor loss and when shut down full, found a very even loaded chaffer. I went back up to 500 empty because the rotor belt was too low in the drive pulley. I stayed at 500 the whole rest of the season. Again there are pictures posted of the windrwos before and after each combine. The load on the chaffer was also reduced. We started out at our normal settings for wind and seive opening. But had tremendous loss. After a few minutes scratching our heads to figure out why any new settings were'nt making any difference, we finally decided to reduce the wond by a large amount. We reduced our old style paddle fan from about 590rpm to 490rpm and tryed again. It worked, we made a few more minor adjustments and got the loss to well within acceptable amounts.We were able to close the seives a bit to because of the reduced load they had to deal with. On the cleanout, I'll have to get back to you. I'll check today for any info on the varieties that have been cleaned, however, I wont be able to give an accurate comparison on the fields that the 2388 was in too. I'll have to use last years cleanout and then also the varieies that I did myself for comparison. Also, we use a cleaner that charges on the out weight clean, so I dont know if he keeps the dirt seperate for weight or not.

 

[farm41]

thanks for the details, why is it important to turn the rotor speed downIJ I also use growth regulator on 100% of my fescue acres, use a 15' macdon, and run a 2388. I am using 8 spike bars, rotor speed of 650 loaded.

 

[Old_Pokey]

I'll have to get back to you later on the cleanout. The few lots that the cleaner has ran of ours so far, he did'nt have the weights handy and was very busy. On the rotor speed, I guess the way I would try to look at it is not so much the importance of running it slow, but how slow can I run it and still seperate the seed. In other words, if I can get all the seed out and have an even load accross the chaffer at 500rpm, why run 650IJ I like to keep the straw and leaves as whole as possible to reduce the load that the seives have to deal with. In my opinion, it takes power to break up the straw, so if you can not break it up so bad, you should be saving on power. The 2388 that runs with us came with spikes the first year. We sent him home to remove them. He had so much straw bits in the tank and we could'nt get them out without what we felt was too much loss over the chaffer. He gained quite a bit of capacity without the spikes as well. The other advantage was his return dont plug near so often now. The other thing I did was take an old pair of impeller blades and cut the tips off so they're similar to the Marlin impellers. That made a huge difference. I also made my own impeller knife. If you want, I could email you a few small pics of the impellers and some of the results behind the 2 machines. Just send me an email at the address above and I'll send some out to ya as soon as I can.

 

[Greedy_Guts]

We bought a set of 12 bars pre harvest this year and used them in barley, they threshed the grain much cleaner, so we ordered some more about 3 weeks ago and they came in 5 days(I farm in England) We have cut canola with them and they do a good job, although canola will thresh going up the front elevator! Will be trying them in wheat tomorrow although rain is forcast, I have spoken and seen a Scottish farmer who writes on here and he says you get no head tips in the sample. We are running 20 threshing and 4 seperator bars in a 1680. As I said on tough barley they really made a difference, much more aggresive rasps on them.