Antique self propelled corn picker. Massey-Harris model SP

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Recommended by Fred

8 ай бұрын

Massey-Harris model SP corn picker is doing a fine job picking at the Boonville Indiana farm show. October 14, 2023

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@khristopherwenger5457 7 ай бұрын

Love watching the old ones running

@Recommended_by_Fred 7 ай бұрын

I enjoy it too! I like the demonstrations much more than the static displays with perfect paint. I can appreciate the hard work involved with a thorough restoration.

@davidkimmel4216 7 ай бұрын

Spent hundreds of hours on one of those machines. You sure got cold due to the fact that you were standing up with no wind protection. When it got wet we used a Case tractor with Case-O-Matic drive to push you when it got slick. We had a 4 cylinder and a 6 cylinder machines. Lots of memories. Thank You. 😊😊😊

@Recommended_by_Fred 7 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it! The fan blew right on your back it it was still hooked up. I had no idea how agile these machines were in soft ground, farmers used to not harvest as early in the season as they do today.

@Mr-er6fg 8 ай бұрын

I had one 30 years ago. Local guy bought it new. 4 cyl. Got hot after a while on my hills. It was fun. Picked for ground ear corn for cattle. Miss those days....

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

I would imagine the engine would get hot with where it is low on the machine. The six cylinder engine were better from what I have been told. Ear corn is such good feed, we had it for hogs and cattle.

@skeets6060 8 ай бұрын

I remember them from when I was a kid,, there was always corn and cobs onthe ground,,, damn good fields to hunt rabbits and birds afterwards. Sure do miss those days

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Good hunting until the farmer come along and bush hogged the stalks down. The quail loved to hide in the trash in the fields.

@frankwurth5375 8 ай бұрын

The shelling loss at the snapping rollers is what led to the demise of the corn pickers. But it still beat the heck out of hand picking! Farmers often put hogs on the field to clean up the corn left by these loses. Allis was one of the first to place stripper plates over those rolls for both safety and to cut down on shelling losses. All modern corn machines now have those. One neighbor who bought one of the early corn head equipped combines, hired out to help pay for it. Many guys would just want him to just open the field so they could start with their own picker. Well after seeing the difference in field losses, they would have him do the whole field as the difference in field losses would more than pay for the cost of hiring the combine! We always started picking well before corn got that dry, to cut down on shelling losses. An uncle of my wife had one of those Massey SP, I tried to buy it when he went to a corn combine, but he preferred to keep it and cut it up instead, A$$hole! Those came in 2 versions, one with a 4 cylinder motor and one with the 6 cylinder.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Some of the newer pickers actually use a combine head on them. New idea had to step up their game if they wanted to stay competitive with the new combines. I assume their idea was to not go into the combine market, and continue with what picker market that was left by making the most efficient machine they could.

@SeattlePioneer 8 ай бұрын

> Pardon my ignorance. What is a "corn head" and what was the advantage over a conventional corn picker?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

@@SeattlePioneer the corn head is a removable part on a combine. You can interchange the corn and reel heads on a combine accordingly to what crop you are harvesting. If you have a picker that could have an interchangeable head on it you might have corn planted on 30 inch rows, or 38 inch rows, you can change the head to match the row spacing. The head has the pilot that feeds the corn plant into the machine, the gathering chains, and the snapping rolls. Let me know if that’s the answer you were looking for.

@larrykrise3609 8 ай бұрын

back in the 1950,s i was 18 drove one of these a lot.was a pretty good picker.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Thank you for the comment! How fast could you pick with this machine?

@ecleveland1 8 ай бұрын

We had several two row pickers when I grew up. There was my father, my uncles, my brother and me.

@derrickbarnes5352 8 ай бұрын

How many acres could you cover in a day?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

We had 2 new idea pickers and a IH 303 combine working together to get the job done. Rarely all 3 were operational at the same time… the combine was always problematic it seemed, although it did a better job when it worked.

@eeengineer8851 8 ай бұрын

Corn looks really dry and you can see it shelling when the cobs land in the wagon. We had ear corn into the 1990s and there was shelling loss at every step. Some of it got collected out of the wagons/elevator at the crib but the stuff from the picker would not. Walking the field and looking at loose cobbs missed reminded me of 5th grade about 1977. Kids in our class would go out to some farms with sacks and collect the corn and it was sold as fund raiser for class trip the next spring. One of the dads in the class owned a sheller so they would shell the corn to take to town. The corn on the ground would end up being "volunteer" corn aka weeds in the soybeans the next summer. Chopped plenty of that out by hand too.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

If you were to plant the corn that you knew you were going to use a picker on, it might be best to plant corn that’s a ensilage type, has bigger stalks and the ears would take awhile to dry compared to the newer hybrids. That’s just a thought, I think the stalks would be better rooted too.

@Thewaywefarm 7 ай бұрын

They were made in my hometown of Batavia New York! Great video!

@Recommended_by_Fred 7 ай бұрын

That’s really cool! So, was the big tractors made in Wisconsin and the implements and small tractors made in New York?

@Thewaywefarm 7 ай бұрын

@@Recommended_by_Fred I’m not 💯 sure. The street they built the combines and pickers on is named Harvester Avenue, don’t think tractors were ever built there.

@Recommended_by_Fred 7 ай бұрын

@Thewaywefarm Alrighty, combines were a big offering from Massey Harris so it makes sense to have a dedicated plant for them, I bet these pickers and combines share a lot of parts.

@jasonandholliehuffman8291 8 ай бұрын

That is neat machine.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

I sure is! Thanks for watching and commenting!!!

@kevinsteelguitar849 8 ай бұрын

Thats for sure!!! We also had a Massey Ferguson 510 Combine. It had the grease banks.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

The only drawback about the grease banks was you weren’t for sure each bearing was getting greased. If one bearing was sloppy or had a blown seal all the grease would go to that one. It’s like water takes to path of least resistance….

@kevinsteelguitar849 8 ай бұрын

We had the same picker back in the 60's. It had a ton of grease fittings on it. The husking rollers in the back were no fun to grease.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

I noticed the mounted pickers and the newer pull behind type have grease banks where you hit one zerk and it has hoses to get every thing you can’t get to easily, that sure would be a nice upgrade on these machines wouldn’t it!

@SeattlePioneer 8 ай бұрын

ernels off like a conventional combine. The first corn picker was produced in 1909.[1] New Idea introduced the first commercially successful corn sheller and husker in 1928.[2] Massey Harris began manufacturing self propelled corn pickers in 1946. Corn pickers began suffering an extreme loss in sales after a corn head was developed for combines in 1956.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

I think you are correct on all accounts! Thanks for the comment and interest in the video!!

@williammcdermott2056 8 ай бұрын

Hogs and cattle were turned out in the field to eat what the picker left behind.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Correct! Trying to get a pull type picker through the 10 ft gate that was common at the time was a chore. Could you imagine some of the monster fields today with fences around them? It would cost a fortune!

@scrotiemcboogerballs1981 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing I seen a old guy turn something like that into a homemade forklift it would lift a full size 60s model truck and car lol

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Wow that would be something to see! The ingenuity of some people is truly amazing. Thanks for watching!

@oldamericaniron5767 8 ай бұрын

I found one for sale, thinking about buying it. Do you know , does it have some sort of variable speed drive like their combines?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

If you check the video out (7:10 mark) he talks about the machine having two gears in the transmission and a variable speed adjustment also. So yes, I think it does have a variable speed. @@oldamericaniron5767

@oldamericaniron5767 8 ай бұрын

I was watching it muted so as not to disturb my wife. That’s what I do when she is watching TV😀

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

@oldamericaniron5767 ok, well you have a good reason! Got to keep the Mrs. Happy! I started using ear buds, only one so I can hear other things around me too! That was my fix…

@hobsonbeeman7529 8 ай бұрын

I wonder if the variety of corn grown back in the day made a difference in how clean the end product was?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

It sure did! Corn today has two ears per stalk, earlier variety’s only had one. Older hybrids dried much slower, so the corn had a higher moisture content which made the kernel stay on the cob much better. The corn went in a crib that promotes air flow during the cold drier winter months to dry the corn naturally. Small things that have changed over time.

@MorganOtt-ne1qj 8 ай бұрын

Ear corn is great feed, except for no good way to mechanize handling it after you crib it. MM made the Uni Harvester, New Idea got the patent and called it Uni System. New Idea made the best pickers, both pull type and mounted. MH became MF, and dropped most of the non tractor machines. Good video.👍

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

You are correct on all counts as usual Morgan! The old hybrids of corn dried much slower, so it needed to be in a crib for most of the winter. A lot of the farmers that sold to the elevator would have a custom man come shell the corn. The corn of today is taller and has thinner stalks, it makes it hard to pick, it will pull out of the ground and choke the machine too.

@larrykrise3609 8 ай бұрын

as i remember we could get 6to8 good loads a day

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@user-ns9ut5xy2t 8 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, a lot of farmers got injured trying to unclog the rollers when they jammed up, didn’t shut the picker down.

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

There were a lot of fingers removed because of this, everyone needs to be careful around these things.

@brandonhoad9033 8 ай бұрын

Is that 36" or 40" rows?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

I’m not for sure. Normal for this area is 38 or 30 inch rows. My guess is 38,

@chrisstanding4181 8 ай бұрын

I see that he didn't have the auto steer turned on

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

The GPS would not work on a 6v positive ground system….

@farmerjbird 8 ай бұрын

Where was this again?

@Recommended_by_Fred 8 ай бұрын

Boonville Indiana, it’s kind of a big deal! You would like it.

@farmerjbird 8 ай бұрын

@@Recommended_by_Fred our Allis state show was there, but I didn't make it, I worked. Started hauling at Menards last week of Sept. Didn't know they had corn picking down there, I'll have to bring a picker next year!!