Thrashing machine

“ There are modifications on the machine described—such as single fan-blast instead of double, &c.—but the general principles are the same. The concave which surrounds the drum is made adjustable, so that it can be regulated according to the nature of the crop to be thrashed. An ordinary machine will thrash all usual farm crops, but great care has to be taken in adjusting the concave or the seed will be injured. Clover, however, is twice
Fig. 3.—Thrashing Machine with fan-blast straw-stacker. ”

“ American Machines.—In American machines the straw, cavings, &c, are caught in a blast at the rear end of the machine and blown up in a light iron pipe of about 18 in. diameter on to the top of the stack, and the grain is delivered loose at the side through a spout into a box wagon. As the payment for thrashing is per bushel the grain is usually passed through a self-registering weighing apparatus, so that accurate account is kept of the bushels thrashed. ”

“ This is an object often attempted, but never before effectually accomplished by a Portable Machine. As a proof of the superiority of C., S., & Co.’s Combined Thrashing Machines over all others, they think the following extract, copied from the Judge’s Report of the Royal Agricultural Society’s Meeting, held at Lincoln, 1854, is sufficient to establish their well-earned reputation:—
“Not long since the farmer was satisfied to thrash an increased quantity of corn by the application of steam power to the old thrashing box. ”

“ The thrashing machine, so valuable an addition to the working establishment of a modern farm-steading, is minutely explained—the varieties in its construction illustrated by wood-cuts—and the respective merits of the different forms of the machine examined and discussed. ”

“ Still, these machines were stationary, being generally built up in homesteads and operated by water power, and the unthrashed corn had to be brought to them. Portable thrashing machines operated by horse power were used to a small extent, but the work was very hard on the horses and took them away when their services were otherwise required on the farm. ”

“ With whipping tendrils the slug swarmed up one of the metal legs and into a small crystal-walled compartment in the forward end of the machine.
There was the crackling hiss of unleashed sub-atomic forces somewhere within the metal body. The machine moved in fumbling uncertainty for a moment as the slug fought to get control of mechanism that had lain idle for a thousand centuries! Then swiftly full control came, and the machine came charging toward the men.
They broke in wild panic before the onslaught of the metal monster. As an engine of war it was invincible. ”

“ The tool, so hard that a journey through many miles of steel has no appreciable effect on its edge, shears its way remorselessly over the surface which presently may be tempered to a toughness resembling its own. If you want to resharpen the tool, it will be no good to attack it with any known metal. But somewhere in the works there is a machine whose buzzing emery-wheels are more than a match for it, and rapidly grind the blunted edge into its former shape, so that it is ready to flay another plate, one skin at a time. ”

“ But there are other causes by which the machinery may be deranged; as, although the smaller portions of the machine, if defective, may at any time be taken out and repaired without its being necessary for the machine to stop; yet if the larger wheels are by any chance thrown out of their equilibrium, the machinery may be destroyed just as it would be by a too rapid motion, occasioned by the excess of propelling power. ”

“ Far off could be heard the rumbling roar of hurrying machines—tractors, diggers, disintegrators, levelers, all the mighty mobile masses of metal that man's brain had conceived—all hurrying forward in massed attack to seek out and destroy their creators, obedient to the will of a master machine, immobile, pressing buttons in the Central Control System. ”

“ Any violent change, or hasty interference with the regular and legitimate working of its functions, may throw the whole machine out of gear, just as the sudden quickening of an engine’s motions will, probably, cause it to break down or turn it off the line ”

“ The eye-lids were thrown open, and the sightless balls rolled over in the sockets, and were fixed in a glassy stare upon the operators, while a frightful grimace disfigured the mouth, and a prolonged, terrible tremor convulsed the whole frame. So powerful was the effect, that even the operators were appalled, but quickly collecting themselves, they resolved on making another experiment. Charging the machine as high as possible, they again applied it. ”

“ If we wait a few minutes while the piece is adjusted and fastened firmly down, we shall see the revolving cutting tools of the machine, like a ring of sharp, shining, steel teeth, tearing away at the rough iron, and leaving a perfectly true, smooth surface behind their track. As the machine cannot plane more than one superficial foot per hour, we will leave the remorseless teeth eating into the solid metal, growling over their meal like some hungry angry beast, and turn to another casting which, having been through this operation, is now laid down to undergo further tortures. ”

“ Some parts of the apparatus and modes of action are indeed extraordinary—and, perhaps, none more so than that for ensuring accuracy in the calculated results—the machine actually correcting itself, and rubbing itself back into accuracy, by the friction of the adjacent machinery! When an error is made the wheels become locked and refuse to proceed; thus the machine must go rightly or not at all—an arrangement as nearly resembling volition as anything that brass and steel are likely to accomplish. ”

“ A capital machine now intervenes, with its labor-saving power; this time of French invention. Formerly, it took two girls a whole day to cut off the refuse threads from the back of a shawl. But this machine, superintended by a man, does it in a minute and a half. A horizontal blade is traversed by spiral blades fixed on a cylinder, the revolving of which gives to the blades the action of a pair of scissors. The man’s office is to put in the shawl, set the machine going, and to beat down the refuse as fast as it is cut off. ”

“ The starting switches of draw presses are protected by big red tags which have to be removed before the switch can be turned--this prevents the machine being started thoughtlessly. Workmen will wear unsuitable clothing--ties that may be caught in a pulley, flowing sleeves, and all manner of unsuitable articles. The bosses have to watch for that, and they catch most of the offenders. New machines are tested in every way before they are permitted to be installed. As a result we have practically no serious accidents.
Industry needs not exact a human toll. ”

“ Then the thresher comes and with another complex machine delivers the grain, loose, through a running spout, where men weigh it and sack it and load it into wagons, which are as crude as the threshing machine itself. ”

“ As the machines were of so delicate a construction that a single blow of a hammer rendered them useless, and as the manufacture was carried on for the most part in detached buildings, often in private dwellings remote from towns, the opportunities of destroying them were unusually easy. In the neighbourhood of Nottingham, which was the focus of turbulence, the machine-breakers organized themselves in regular bodies, and held nocturnal meetings at which their plans were arranged. ”

“ What are all these machines but inanimate mechanisms, things of metal and rubber and quartz. What makes them the monsters they have become?" [103]
I smote my forehead in anger. "What a fool! Now I see it. It's the master machine you're after."
"Exactly," he smilingly agreed. "Overwhelm, destroy this devilish creature of mine, with its unhuman intelligence, and the machines are what they were before: merely obedient slaves."
I pondered that a moment. "And how, may I ask, are you going to force this old Glacier to move." ”

“ If a more considerable derangement were produced by any accidental disturbance, the consequence would be that the supplementary mechanism would cause the whole system to become locked, so that not a wheel would be capable of moving; the impelling power would necessarily lose all its energy, and the machine would stop. ”

“ It seems like a thing endowed with human reason, when we see it move off to a distant part of the building, reach down and pick up a piece of metal weighing several tons, carry it to some other portion of the building and lower it into place, to the fraction of an inch. While the machine itself does not reason, there is a reasoning being at the helm, who controls it and makes it subservient to his will. The machine is to the engineer who manipulates it what a man's brain is to the man himself. ”

“ Every part of the machine suddenly goes useless. The heavy mechanism simply drops. In a word, the Gossamer had been caught in a dead void caused by two opposing air currents colliding, and shutting the machine into an absolute pocket, or vacuum. ”

“ Robotics applications and space manufacturing options for these types of deformation processes are minimal, especially under vacuum conditions. If there is no oxidized film on the metal, the workpiece and die may contact weld, causing the machine to seize. ”

“ There are some twenty-two thousand electron tubes in each one, you know, and so we devised a gadget that went down the aisles and replaced them one after another automatically. Now, the machine must have started from that crude affair and by using its cable-clamps, worked on another machine capable of more complex action. Sort of like a lobster fashioning a hammer out of a rock with its claws. Then the more complex machine must have rebuilt the repair-gadgets, making them even more facile—and so on until we have the completely capable machine. ”

“ Rhinklav'n was waiting, his nose-flaps drawn over his nostrils to keep the cold morning air from cutting into his lungs. "I am pleased that you come," he said. "The Machine is fully assembled for your problem." He pointed down toward the Machine, a vast cluster of separate stages connected by rods. "On the far right, in that small building, is the power source of the Machine, a mercury-turbine engine. We can't spare the water to make steam, you know. ”

“ If it happens again, the fighter must go on, fighting against the time when the loss of oil will endanger his operating efficiency.
Sometimes the machines strike each other with such deadly impact, they dent the inner frame-work of the body, putting strains on a section of wiring or electrical tubing. Then the damaged machine must fight defensively to protect its weakened section. The offender will work out elaborate punch-patterns to trick the defender into somehow thinking he understands the aim of each pattern of punches and where the final concentration will be. ”

“ There were neither planing, slotting, nor shaping machines, and with the exception of very imperfect lathes and a few drills, the preparatory operations of construction were effected entirely by the hands of the workmen. Now, everything is done by machine tools, with a degree of accuracy which the unaided hand could never accomplish. The automaton, or self-acting, machine tool has within itself an almost creative power; in fact, so great are its powers of adaptation, that there is no operation of the human hand that it does not imitate. ”

“ Grain must be separated from the straw and chaff. The Biblical threshing floor, on which oxen or horses trampled out the grain, was still common in Washington's time, though it had been largely succeeded by the flail. In Great Britain several threshing machines were devised in the eighteenth century, but none was particularly successful. They were stationary, and it was necessary to bring the sheaves to them. The seventh patent issued by the United States, to Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, was for a threshing machine. ”

“ Owing to the peculiar construction of the machine, it is adapted to drilling, and may be converted into a screw-cutter by placing a vice in the opening of the base and detaching the feed devices. Arranged as it is, it may be propelled at two different speeds, so that it can have more or less power either to cut screws or drill holes, simply by changing the point where power is applied. When the greater power and less speed is required, the smaller gear is used ”

“ I never imagined that there were so many processes through which all parts of a machine have to be put to perfect them, or that literally thousands of men do some one little thing to every machine turned out. We stood and gazed at men who were polishing the lacquered sides of automobile bodies with their thumbs, dipping them in oil and so rubbing down certain rough places; or at others hovering over automobile motors attached in rows to gasoline tanks and being driven at an enormous rate of speed for days at a time without ever stopping, to test their durability and speed capacity. ”

“ The impact of its heavy, shark-like body shook the machine, and its great claws grated over the metal plates with an unpleasantly suggestive sound, as it strove vainly to rip them open. I felt some alarm. For sheer fighting power I would match one of those flying plants against any animal that ever walked on earth. In wing-spread it was fully as long as the Omnimobile, though the machine was, of course, many times heavier. ”

“ Wherever there is a possibility of flying metal, the workman is required to wear goggles and the chances are further reduced by surrounding the machine with netting. Around hot furnaces we have railings. There is nowhere an open part of a machine in which clothing can be caught. ”