Deere + Company

Wilbur M Davis

Bobby G Sawyer

John A Nichols

Angel L Giani

Ralph C Gold

John F Husman

Jay E Oakes

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse disk type cutter bar. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A transversely extending concave conditioning plate conforms closely to the forward upper quadrant of the rotor. A hood covers the rotor and conditioning plate and includes a forward portion which serves in part as safety shielding and a rearwardly extending crop deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it inside the hood up and over the rotor through the confined space or conditioning zone between the rotor flails and the conditioning plate and discharge it rearwardly. In its passage through the conditioning zone, the crop material is bruised or conditioned in such a way that its rate of drying in the window is accelerated. The conditioning plate is mounted so that radial clearance between it and the rotor flails can be adjusted to vary the degree of conditioning. Circumferential adjustment of the plate in relation to the rotor is also possible and particularly useful in setting the height above the ground of the leading or lower edge of the conditioning plate to suit the height of the crop being cut and conditioned.

Adjustable conditioning plate for an impeller mower-conditioner

A pull-type mobile harvesting machine includes a header supported on a main frame and an arch-like tongue swingably connected to the main frame and extending forward over the header for pivoting connection to a tractor. A double-acting hydraulic steering cylinder controlled from the tractor is connected between the frame and tongue for swinging the tongue relative to the frame while the machine is advancing so that the machine is displaced laterally selectively between a range of operating positions, offset relative to the tractor, and transport positions, generally immediately behind the tractor. A shut-off valve in one of the hydraulic lines to the cylinder makes it possible to trap oil in one side of the cylinder in any given condition of cylinder extension, thus locking the tongue in a given position relative to the frame and also preventing flow of oil to the cylinder so that inadvertent manipulation of a cylinder control valve at the tractor does not cause accidental swinging of the tongue and lateral displacement of the machine relative to the tractor.

Hydraulic lock for the swingable tongue of a towed machine

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter assembly comprising a series of side-by-side rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free-swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter assembly. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter assembly and carry it inside the hood up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow. The hood includes a side sheet having a fore-and-aft extending wall closely adjacent and alongside an end disk of the cutter assembly and shaped and disposed to function primarily as a combined crop divider and safety shield, parting the standing crop ahead of the end disk to facilitate cutting and extending below the level of the disk to form a protective guard.

Side sheet for an impeller mower-conditioner

A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter bar comprising a series of pairs of side-by-side contra-rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it, inside the hood, up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow. The flow of cut material from each pair of disks tends to be concentrated into a rearwardly directed stream by the bite or convergence of the contra-rotating disks. The distribution of flails on the rotor is locally concentrated so that a center of flail concentration is longitudinally aligned with each concentration of material flow so that all material received by the rotor gets approximately uniform treatment.

Growing community of inventors

Ottumwa, IA, United States of America

Wilbur M Davis