Threshing machine

“ To a person having a threshing machine, the addition of a hemp-break will not cost more than twelve or fifteen dollars. You know that the first mover in that machine is a horizontal horse-wheel with cogs on its upper face. On these is placed a wallower and shaft, which give motion to the threshing apparatus. ”

“ Why not make the engine capable of moving itself and drawing the threshing machine, and dispense with the horses altogether? So he applied himself to the job and did it. Then it was found that the self-propelling threshing-machine engines could draw a great many other things besides threshing machines, and the business grew to large proportions.
Mr. Aveling made an engine with valve and valve-gear from my drawings, and I took a ride with him on it from Rochester to London, the engine drawing two trucks loaded with the two halves of a fly-wheel. ”

“ There are no fluted rollers at the feed, the sheaves are fed straight to the drum; but as the working of these high-speed drums was attended with considerable risk, the Threshing Machine Act 1878 now provides for some sort of guard or safety feed.
In the most modern thrashing machine the ordinary routine is as follows: The loosened sheaf is fed in at the feed mouth under the drum guard and passes between the drum beaters and the concave; most of the corn falls through the concave on to the corn and chaff receiving board, but some of the corn and chaff remain among the straw ”

“ Where the climate is dry and the grain is ready for threshing as soon as it is cut, there is in general use a type of machine known as a combined harvester and [Pg 42] thresher in which a thresher and a harvester machine of the header type are mounted on a single platform, and the heads of grain are carried directly from the harvester by elevators into the threshing machine, from which the threshed grain is delivered into bags and is then ready for shipment. ”

“ When threshing-machines were first introduced into England, there was such an opposition to them, and arson became so common in consequence, that such farmers as had them were obliged to surrender them, or expose them broken on the high-road. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the work of a thrashing-machine has to be stopped for a week or more, because one of the cogs in a wheel has been broken, and if to obtain a new wheel one must send a special messenger to the next province-then the use of a thrashing machine is not possible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the houses are full and the hulm in a fit state for threshing, the engine is started and the work begun. One man, relieved by others from time to time, (for the labor requires activity, and consequently is exhausting,) feeds the thresher, which, with its armed teeth, moves with such velocity as to appear like a solid cylinder. ”

“ I doubt if machinery is really quite the advantage claimed by theorists and reconstructionists at the present day. Even the thrashing machine, universally adopted, presents disadvantages in comparison with the ancient flail, generally regarded as obsolete, though still to be found in occasional use by the smallholder or allotment occupier. In former times the farmer reserved his thrashing by hand, for the most part, for winter work during severe frost or wet weather, when nothing could be done outside. The immense barns, which still exist, were filled almost to the roof at harvest ”

“ What an easy thing it appears to be for a farming man to thrash his corn with a flail; and yet what an expensive arrangement of wheels [Pg 114] is necessary to produce the same effects with a thrashing-machine! The truth is, that the man's arm and the flail form a much more curious machine than the other machine of wheels, which does the same work; and the real question as regards the value of the two machines is, which machine in the greater degree lessens the cost of production? ”

“ An engine-driver, a feeder, a sackman, and ten other men to handle the sheaves, straw, chaff, grain, &c, while half as many more may be needed where the grain has to be carted, as when the thrashing is done in the field in harvest time. An 8-h.p. steam engine is the usual motive power, but the development of the oil engine has provided a very satisfactory substitute. The engine is usually of the “traction” type, so that it can move the thrashing machine or “barn work” (as it is sometimes called) and elevator from place to place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this time, both of them could see plainly the details of the machine which, constructed apparently of polished steel, flashed dizzily in the sunlight as it shot over the golf-course. It was evidently a hollow cylinder shaped like an anchor-ring or life-preserver, about seventy-five feet in diameter, with a tripod superstructure carrying, at its apex, a thimble-shaped device, the open mouth of which pointed downward through the middle of the machine. A faint yellow glare—a sort of luminous vapor—hovered below this gigantic car, which sailed through the air with a deep humming sound. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The two important points in operating threading machines is to keep the dies sharp and to well lubricate them with oil. When dies are run at a maximum speed and continuously at work they should be sharpened once or, if the duty is heavy, twice a day, a very little grinding sufficing.
In nut tapping the oil lubrication is of the utmost importance, and is more difficult because the cuttings are apt to clog the tap flutes and prevent the oil from flowing into the cutting teeth. ”

“ To erect a machine so high, to engage the whole fall, would be, I fear, more expense than the power you would get would warrant; therefore I would recommend it to be made use of in a cylinder, in the same way as we use falls of water of 200 feet in our Cornish copper mines. We allow one-third loss for friction and leakage in those machines; but your machine being so very small, the loss will exceed that proportion ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order to avoid the great mischief arising sometimes from undue strain upon and the breaking of a shaft, a weak coupling composed of a link is sometimes employed between the shaft and the driven machine, whereby, should the force become suddenly too great, the link of weaker metal is broken, and the connection between the shaft thereby destroyed and the machine stopped. ”

“ In single-pointed tools, such as are used upon lathe work, this has but little significance, because it is the work of but a minute or two to grind up the tool to a full point again, but in taps and solid dies, or in chasers in heads (as in some bolt-cutting machines) it is highly important, because it impairs the fit of the threads, and it is difficult to bring the tools to shape after they are once worn. ”

“ The Ladd engine dispenses with the use of permanent steel magnets, and is a more compact form of the machine than Wild's. The Gramme machine returns again to the use of powerful steel magnets, between the poles of which revolves a ring-shaped electro-magnet. The problem of producing the best machine for the production of electricity by mechanical power is not yet solved. The machines now before the public will doubtless be very much improved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The head stock could be arranged to hold work-pieces, milling cutters or drills. Hardened tools for the necessary cutting operations could be fabricated by the machine from carbon steel in the annealed condition, then tempered, drawn, and sharpened by a separate simpler machine including a small furnace and a tool grinding wheel equipped with tool-holder and feeds. By careful standardization of parts, tools, and fixtures, it is conceivable that such a "one-machine shop" could succeed in reproducing itself. ”

“ It is a difficult matter, in the absence of special holding devices, to chuck a bearing, especially if a long one, so true in a boring machine or lathe as to insure that its bore shall stand in absolutely correct alignment with the journal when placed in its position in the framing where it is to operate, and it is for this reason that many bearings are bored while in their frames. ”

“ Williams told us that the tool would not be allowed to hit the rock with hammer-blows like a pile-driver, for it would be sure to turn off sidewise and follow a seam or a fault, making a crooked hole. Instead, the tool was dangled so that it just barely touched, then, as it was jumped by the machine, the stretch of the cable at each yank would let it strike the rock with a light, springy blow that could not turn out of line ”

“ By the introduction of suitable machines with absolutely unyielding connecting-rods, frictionless joints, and bearings, inextensible belts, etc., it is always possible to work the machine in such a [Pg 31] way as to bring the system completely into its initial state without leaving any change in or out of the machines, for the machines of themselves do not perform any work. ”

“ We should allow as much more for loss in screw slip and atmospheric resistance due to the motor, the framework, and the wires of the machine. If, however, the screw is placed in the path of the greatest resistance, it will recover a portion of the energy imparted to the air. We shall, however, require a 50 H.P. motor, and thus have 30 lbs. ”