Bellering H

I used to use an H to cut 6 rows of dry beans.

This is done in the early morning usually before daylight and 6 four foot knives are run 2 or 3 inches under ground.

I'd pull it in 4th and the exhaust manifold would be cherry red. Fire would be coming out of the muffler standing 6" tall.

They sound sooooo good when they pull!

Allan

Can you discribe how the bean undercutters mounted to the H ? I don't imagine that you had a 3 point hitch. Did they mount on a cultivator frame ? I am trying about an acre of dry beans this year and would like to get out of pulling them all by hand.

Thanks

Greg

Greg,

I'll try. This makes about the millionth time I've wished that I had taken pictures of all that farm equipment.

Now, it is only in my minds eye as most of this old stuff that we all used to use has been cut up for scrap by many of these salvage yards and just is no more.

Think of a regular 6 row cultivator on the H.

Instead of cultivator shanks being the size you would imagine, they were huge "C" shaped things coming down from the cultivator frame (one for each row) with a 4 foot long, 6 inch wide knife attached (flat side down)to it's foot.

The knife was attached in such a way and was angled so that the total cut for that one knife amounted to about 12" as it slide thru the ground snapping the beans off along the row.

The problem with beans are the vines. The crop has to be handled when the dew is down so that the vines are "tough" and the pods will not shell out.

So, also at each "shank" were long 3/4" dividing rods to guide each cut row around the tires and to it's "windrow". Out in front of the whole she-bang were larger dividers, one for each tire.

The rear of the cultivator was not attached.

Later on we started using a rod weeder at the rear to make sure we got all the beans pulled.

Newer models nowadays just use a set of dividers out in front of the tractor, lift the beans with a rod weeder behind the tractor and dump 'em into an attached windower behind that.

This is a picture of an older front mounted model covering 8 30" rows. If you can imagine 6 of those rows in 22" spacing, and the whole thing squeezed up under the belly of an H. That was the first bean cutters.

I tried, :>)

Allan

Greg

Yes, the cutter would push two rows together, then following this, you would come along with a side delivery rake or a windrower and put 6 or 12 rows together in a big windrow prior to combining.

Like I say, the newest outfits do this all in one pass. Divide, lift, windrow.

Dry beans are so fragile that they will crack very easily. Therefore the combine has to be kept full and the cylinder speed has to be set very slow....under 200rpm.

Allan

Your information is a lot of help. Thanks

Greg