Crary Air Reel

Can't get an actual reel, just the cheaper setup that has a tube across the front of your existing reel. Same blower setup I guess.
Anybody use one of these in short beans?
Anybody have one and wished he had the actual air reel?
I would think the reel would put the air stream closer to the action.
I can't reach my short beans with the reel on a CIH 1020 head. The beans pile up on the cutter bar in a short distance and the rest just get pushed underneath the head until the bar clears on its own. It don't help the soggy buggers are 18% moisture and the stalks are rubbery but they gotta go before the SNOW comes!

We use the tube setup on a 1020 header on a 2388. I like it. I have not used an actual air reel to compare it to however.

The tubes work great in short stuff as you described. We had short wheat due to partial drown out that was too low to grab good with the reel, but the air cleared the cutter bar well.

We also had 80 acres of LaPaz pinto beans we took straight rather than windrowing. These are all short plants when ripe. Here again the reel cant grab them effectively to hold against the cutter bar or clear them after being cut. The air worked great for clearing the cutter bar, you don't have to be as aggressive with the reel and there is less shelling out on the cutter. I was disappointed in the fact I was unable to lift the real low pods. I don't know if the actual air reel would do it.

I have only done about 15 acres of soys so far. Too wet and also doing sugar beets. The short plants cleared the cutter well and again I was less aggressive with the reel to get the desired results.

If you have it installed at a dealer, make sure you check clearances on everything before you leave. I had to do extensive mods and readjusting to the add on row dividers to get clearance when the header flexes up on the ends.

I hope this helps. We place our setup in the good addition column.

Doc

A friend of mine uses the AWS unit has had it on the last 2

machines . He had really short beans some years back that would

not feed . He told me the unit paid for itself the 1st year of use .

Here are a couple o links to the unit .

http://www.awsairreels.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1U-Bo_RDsU&feature=fvw