Farmer-Designed Rotary Combine

Farmer-Designed Rotary Combine COMBINES Miscellaneous 8-1-16 Australian wheat farmer Robert Winston has attracted a lot of interest in the new-style rotary combine he designed and built in his farm workshop. He's tested the prototype on wheat, barley and triticale and exhibited at the National Field days, hoping to line up a manufacturer for the revolutionary rotary which he feels represents "the utmost in combine simplicity, ease of servicing and cost." "I'm convinced it can be manufactured and sold for about one-tenth the cost of conventional combines, and do just as good a job of threshing those crops which this smaller, simpler rotary is designed to handle," says Winston. He feels one of the most out-standing features is the combine's ability to harvest wheat and other crops with virtually no kernel damage. Designed solely for harvesting standing wheat and other crops, it's 10 ft. wide and has a special woven mesh screen which also is 10 ft. wide, 10 ft. long and positioned at about a 45? angle. Continuous belts, made of heavy rubber and in three 40 in. wide sections, rotate counter clockwise above the wire screen on tensioned rollers. As standing grain is cut by the front-mounted sickle, the heavy tensioned belt drags it over the wire mesh screen to thresh out the kernels. Threshed grain falls through the mesh and slides by gravity towards the bottom where it's picked up by a cross auger and elevated into a holding bin. Straw is dragged by the heavy belts to the top of the screen until it falls off the edge and drops to the ground. Chaff which falls through the wire threshing screen is blown out the back and onto the ground by a large blower mounted underneath and driven by a small stationary motor. That's it ù a rotary-type combine but without any threshing rotor, cylinder, rub bars, straw walkers or shakers. Winston believes the simplified threshing concept he's designed can be easily adapted to older pull-type, pto-driven combines. He envisions farmers buying one of these old machines, stripping it down to just the chassis and grain elevator and tank, then putting a Winston belt-threshing rotary on the old chassis to harvest wheat, soy-beans and other standing crops. We'll keep you posted on any further developments. Meanwhile, if you'd like to compare notes with the inventor, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert Winston, Nyngan, NSW, Australia.

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