Siamese Combine: Two Deere 95's Spliced Together

One of the most ambitious "made it myself" farm shop projects we've ever written about in FARM SHOW is the Siamese combine, featured in our September-October issue. Kansas farmer Floyd Tuttle, of Tribune, and other members of his family, spliced two Deere 95's together to make the big single Siamese unit. it sports an 80 in. cylinder, 35 ft. header, dual wheels, double straw walkers, and capacity that just doesn't quit. "There's no reason why most any of today's 30-ft. header combines can't be made into one giant unit with a 60 ft. header," he told FARM SHOW. "With the big unit, one man does the work of two, plus you have the maintenance and servicing of just one machine rather than two." Here, as described by Tuttle, are key features of the Siamese combine: "Originally, the two combines had 18-ft. headers which we fastened together into a 35 ft. header. Instead of being driven from the outside, the header is now driven from the middle. However, we had to put an extra bridge across the double header to keep the ends from sagging. "When outfitting the big platform with hydraulics, we left the two original cylinders on each of the two smaller platforms, giving us 4 cylinders for the 35 ft. header. To increase combine capacity, we simply welded the two original 40 in. cylinders together, giving us an 80 in. cylinder. We also have two sets of straw walkers in the larger combine, giving us double width. However, we did have to put carriers or a bearing between them because the little 2 in. crankshaft couldn't carry that long of a support with that much weight. The straw walkers are supported in the middle with bearings. "To further increase capacity, we took off the conventional trash spreaders and replaced them with a 2-bladed, belt driven propeller which runs on a vertical axis rather than horizontally. "The original grain tanks held about 70 bu. We squared the tapered bins so they'd fit together, then made one larger bin out of them which holds about 120 bu. "For power, we initially coupled the two original Diesel engines together with a U joint in the middle. We later changed to a bigger single Diesel engine." Tuttle feels that joining the two combines together has increased capacity - without resulting in any additional grain loss or damage: "We run the big combine at the same field speed the two single original combines used to run at. But, it now takes only one man to run the unit. And, with time as valuable as it is during wheat harvest, that's a big advantage," Tuttle concludes. Siamese Combine: Two Deere 95's Spliced Together

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