Technique's required with the big, red machine

link Audra Brown

Local columnist

Many hours and days and nights have I spent on a big, red machine. There's even a song about it.

It gets quite a bit right. A combine isn't fast. Roading it with the header off, you can get close to 15, but rear-wheel steering at that speed makes things get a little exciting sometimes. Ten is more stable, but when the header is on, and its cutting time, 5 is hoofin' it.

Backing up traffic is amusing. Pull out onto the Bethel Highway with the header on and it's fence-to-fence. Ain't nobody getting around, and it ain't possible to do anything but keep going where you're going in the combine.

Then there's gates... Very few gates are designed with 30-foot headers in mind. So, one of the primo skills as a combine-driver is the ability to squeeze a big machine with a 30-foot header through holes that are considerably less than 30 feet.

There are two basic methods: the forward twist and the reverse pivot.

If the gap is only a little too small, the forward method works. You simply approach the opening from the side, paralleling the fence as close as possible. When the header is even with the gate, you start turning into the gate and swing the end of the header around before the rest of it.

If performed correctly, the combine gets through the gate, and all the fences are still standing. The shortfall of this technique is that you must remain a header-half away from the fence prior to the turn, and since combines don’t turn incredibly short, it only shaves a couple feet off.

Theoretically, one only needs a gate that is the width of the distance between the outside of the right tire and the left edge of the header. (I do mean the right tire, because it doesn’t have a ladder in the way.)

The easiest method to squeeze through such a minimal space is the reverse pivot. Simply back the combine into the gate, so that the right tire just clears the right gatepost. Similarly, the left end of the header should be lined up so that it will go just inside the left gatepost. (If not, then, you're just gonna have to face the fact that it won't fit.)

Just before the right side of the header runs over the fence, you apply the right brake and turn the wheel to that the combine backs around and through.

Easy as that.

Audra Brown only does some things backwards. Contact her at:

[email protected].