Combine header manufacturer Gerhinghoff had a significant new product line to introduce to the North American market at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky, in February. The brand’s new Independence product line of headers includes two new corn models, the Freedom and the Patriot, which offer producers some new design options. The Freedom […] Read more
A corn header with variable row spacing ability
New equipment design from Gerhinghoff
AGCO’s swather factory hits a milestone
Hesston factory builds its 100,000th swather
“Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the 100,000th swather,” said Kyle Kitt, AGCO’s marketing manager, as he stood on stage in an auditorium at the brand’s Hesston, Kansas, combine and hay equipment manufacturing plant in late March. From then on, it was a little like a rock concert. Music played and lights flashed as […] Read more
PHOTOS: Along the Line: Assembling a Massey Ferguson swather
AGCO’s recent 100,000th milestone for swather builds coincides with the 70th anniversary of operations at its Hesston manufacturing plant. In all, the Hesston factory turns out a combined total of about 42 machines of all types each day. And many of the components for those machines are fabricated right from flat steel on site, a process that […] Read more
Spring sale an indicator of strong demand
This past Saturday I took in my first auction sale of the season, a Mack Auction Company event near Langbank, Saskatchewan. This sale had an interesting lineup. It wasn’t primarily late-model, very-high capacity equipment like so many sales include these days. This one was mainly older machinery. There were a lot of tractors under the […] Read more
Do or do not
I think one of the most motivating phrases to ever become ingrained in the minds of a society has to be the one that came from a fictional, little green movie character who could master the ways of the Force but not the English language: Yoda. “Do or do not,” he famously said in “Return […] Read more
How to weld 90-degree outside corners
Proper welding of a corner joint starts with perfectly cut straight edges
One day many years ago, another welding student and I were taking a break outside the door of the college welding shop. “I just love burnin’ stick,” he said, as we discussed what we were doing that day. (Burning stick is slang for arc welding, in case you didn’t get that.) I had to agree […] Read more
PHOTOS: How to weld corner joints
Here’s a tip. If you don’t take time to cut the steel properly, create good joint fitment and understand how to avoid the problems that applying a lot of heat to a piece of steel can create, the finished product will have a weak weld joint or won’t fit because it’s warped from heat distortion. That […] Read more
PHOTOS: Multi-purpose trucks gaining popularity
German farmers and contractors find uses for a hybrid truck-tractor
Germany is the birthplace of the Mercedes Benz Unimog, an ultra-capable, four-wheel drive vehicle that was designed to be equally as much a truck as a tractor. After the end of the Second World War, German farmers, short on cash, needed both tractors to work their fields and a truck to haul their produce and get them to the local […] Read more
How it works: the differential
We look at the basic operating principle behind differential axle drives
Getting engine power to the ground in a vehicle or farm machine usually means routing torque from the engine flywheel through the transmission, then turning it 90 degrees to spin an axle connected to the wheels. Simple bevel-cut gears allow for that change in direction, but there is another problem that has to be overcome: […] Read more
Two new Tempo planters
Swedish brand Vaderstad adds new models to its high-speed planter line
With its purchase of Saskatchewan-based Seed Hawk a couple of years ago, Swedish implement manufacturer Vaderstad has made no secret of its intention to become a bigger player in the North American market. In November at Agritechnica in Germany the brand launched two additions to its line of Tempo high speed planters, which are capable of working […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
