IMPROVEMENTS IN HARVESTING MACHINES
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William McIntyre Cranston at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 25th July 1876.
WILLIAM MCINTYRE CRANSTON, of 36, Worship Street, Finsbury, in the County
of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN HARVESTING MACHINES."
This Invention relates to improvements in harvesting machines, and consists,
firstly, in so constructing the main frame of a reaper that a rotating head on a
vertical shaft and carrying gathering blades can be used in combination with an
endless travelling apron forming a platform on to which the straws can fall to be
carried by the apron to the side of the machine and then delivered in swath at
the side.
The Invention consists, secondly, in combining on the one frame of a reaper
1, a rotating head on a vertical shaft carrying gathering blades; 2, an endless
travelling apron, and 3, a binder for collecting and tying the straws into bundles
by wire, cord, or the usual straw band prior to their delivery in succession on to
the ground.
According to the first part of my Invention I make a platform of a reaping
machine in the form of an endless apron set to work at right angles to the travel
of the machine that the straws when severed by the knives may fall upon the
apron and be carried by it to and be delivered from the side in swath, the endless
apron or independent travelling platform being operated by gearing from the main
driving wheel. The straws are caused to incline towards the endless apron
platform by blades on a rotating frame or head, the arms of the blades working
against a cam shaped face on a fixed support, that as they descend in succession
they enter between the standing uncut straws with an end on or guillotine motion,
and gradually fall into a horizontal position or nearly so, gathering the straws
over the knives and on to the platform as the machine travels onward and the
blades or arms continue their rotation around the head. The blades then suddenly
rise by the action of the cam into a vertical position or nearly so to clear the straws
which have by this time been cut, and also to clear the main wheel and other parts
of the machine.
According to the second part of my Invention I combine the foregoing endless
travelling apron platform and the rotating head and gathering blades with a binder
fitted on the side of the same frame so as to take the straws from the endless apron
and gather sufficient to form a bundle and tie it up with wire, cord, or a straw
band. When the binder is fitted I either make the endless apron longer so as to
carry the straws direct into the cradle, or I fit an additional travelling apron or
other appliance between the first mentioned apron and the binder.
D..

page_text: I do not limit myself to fitting any special kind of binder mechanism to my
reaper, although 1 prefer to employ the binder patented by me on the 24th July
1875, No. 2629. The object of this second part of my Invention is to gather, cut,
remove and bind the grain straws into bundles, and then to deliver them on to the
ground at the side of the machine, the whole of the appliances being fitted to and
formning one machine, as set forth, that the operations now usually effected in
stages and partially by manual labour may be accomplished in a more expeditious
manner and at less expense.