Ron Silvernagle may be in his early 80s, but he still likes to pitch in to help out on the family farm near Biggar, Sask., during busy times like harvest. He’s also an inventor of sorts, and like a lot of farmers, he enjoys spending time in the workshop figuring out ways to improve the operation.
Silvernagle’s latest invention is a safety feature he came up with after he took a nasty spill from a combine during harvest in 2019. He had climbed onto the header on the front of the combine to clean grime from the windshield when he slipped and fell six feet to the ground, cracking some of his ribs.
“I’m lying there in the hospital after I broke these ribs and I’m thinking I have to try to do something. So that’s where the concept came from,” says Silvernagle, adding he has heard about other farmers who were hurt after falling off combines.
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Silvernagle’s solution to prevent accidents like his was to build a metal guardrail and walkway structure that can be attached to a combine by bolting it onto the frame at the front of the machine. “It all slides in there,” he says. “It’s very simple.”
Silvernagle spent part of a winter constructing his first prototype and he built a couple more shortly after that. “Once I had the first one built, the next two were easy.”
All three combines on Silvernagle’s farm are now fitted with the safety rail and walkway systems, which all together cost about $1,000 to make. He says if all combines were equipped with such a safety feature, it would make cleaning them less hazardous.
Silvernagle comments he has always found cleaning combine windows during harvest to be a problem, particularly if it’s a crop like field peas.
“Pea dust — it’s just like glue and you have to clean the windows at least twice a day, sometimes three times,” he says, adding he tried using various long-handled mops and squeegees but without much success.
Silvernagle thought about commercializing his invention and making more safety rail and walkway attachments to sell but decided he wasn’t really interested in doing that. He says he believes his safety feature is something combine manufacturers could build for less money and easily incorporate into their combine designs.
Silvernagle has talked to some Hutterite colonies in his area about his safety rail and walkway system and he believes it’s something they could build themselves. “I didn’t come up with the idea to be in the market making money, I just came up with it for the idea of being safe,” he says.
Some of Silvernagle’s other ideas over the years include attaching an auger to a grain spout to assist with loading semi-trailers and an electric lift device to help hoist you up when climbing into a combine.
“I love it. I don’t know why,” he says. “I’ve never had any engineering experience at a school or university or anything like that. They’re just things that pop into my head, and I go ahead and (build) it.”
Silvernagle says his son has pretty much taken over running the farm, “but I still run the combine and the swather. I like swathing, and there’s harrowing to do.”
He says given his age, some people have suggested he stop doing farm work, but he’s not ready to do that just yet.
“I still feel active enough and I still want to do stuff,” he says. “I’ve slowed down, but I don’t want to quit. What do you do when you quit? You age faster, and I don’t want to do that.”
