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1876 Article-Aveling & Porter, Steam Reaping Engine |
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The Engineer Magazine, 01 Sep 1875 pgs. 148 & 150 |
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1/11/2013 12:52:46 PM |
STEAM REAPING MACHINE
In our report of the Royal Agricultural Society's Show at Birmingham, as well an in our last impression, we have referred to the steam reaping machine, if we may use the term, illustrated at page 148.
It will be seen in a moment that the arrangement is in principle very simple. Mr. Aveling has taken one of known steam crane traction engines and coupled it on a Crosskill reaping machine. The engine has been too often referred to in our pages to need description here. The reaping machine in of the old or Bell type, modified and improved. The knife reciprocates at the foot of the inclined platform, a crank under the platform communicating motion to it. The machine is carried on four wheels, two small ones in front, and two much larger, of wood, behind. The corn is carried off the platform as cut to the right or left, according to the position of a clutch taking into bevel wheels, by endless bands traversing the platform, the cut corn being laid in a swathe ready for binding.
The machine is coupled in front of the engine by two angle iron bars or shafts, an shown, which pivot on the sides of the smoke box. The crane chain is hooked into the blight of second chain, secured at each end to the framework of the machine. The whole can he removed from or attached to the engine in a very few minutes. The system of working in is as follows: —The machine being fixed to the engine, the crane in set in motion, and the reaping machine in lifted off the ground, the shafts turning on the centres in the smoke box. The crane brake is now made fast, and the road gear being put in motion the engine proceeds to the field of corn to be cut; the brake being released, the machine is dropped on to the ground as shown in our engraving. The engine is then started, and travels forward, cutting a track of about 11 ft. wide at the rate of nearly three miles an hour, the reaping machine being driven by the pitch chain shown at the side in our engraving. When the end of the bout" has been reached, the driver stops the engine and picks up the machine, which in then high above the corn. The engine can then be turned round in about its own length, and the machine being again dropped, another bout is cut, and so on.
Opinions will vary much as to the value of this invention, but we think that much credit is due to Messrs. Aveling and Porter for demonstrating that, by very simple appliances, an 8-horsepower traction engine, which might otherwise remain idle in an farmyard, can he rendered capable of cutting enormous areas of corn in a thoroughly efficient and satisfactory manner.
Image Courtesy of Grace's Guide.
http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1876EnV42-p148.jpg |
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1876 Aveling & Porter, Steam Reaping Engine
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