Wheat thresher

[DJ54]

I'd be looking for a small pull type combine myself. Every now and then you will see a decent old A-C All-Crop, John Deere, or IH one on Craigslist. Most can be bought for scrap price, or a bit over.

 

[hddnis]

Youtube has many ideas in just about every scale possible, from the first link with a plastic bucket and drill up to mini self-propelled combines.


grain thresher designs and winnowing - how to - YouTube

Small Scale Grain Threshing Machine 2 / 3 - YouTube

Mini Combine: More Info - YouTube




Mr. HE

 

[R W]

I'd be looking for a small pull type combine myself.

By far the best way to go.

 

[BHD]

they have what is many times called a patty thresher, that the Chinese use, basically a threshing cylinder that one manual puts bundles of wheat / rice up to and it knocks the berries out the the head,

Portable Paddy Thresher - Buy Paddy Thresher,Thresher,Portable Thresher Product on Alibaba.com

IMG_0641 Manual thresher | Flickr - Berbagi Foto!

Adventure in Malawi: Wheat Thresher and Winnower

take a sickle mower, and make a platform on the back of it, when the plat form fills have some one rake it off and then come back and tie bundles, then shock the bundles for keeping the grain in condition,
grain shocks - Google Search
until one can thresh it, and clean it,

 

[6011Artist]

I had a buddy that would take dried peas and put them in a old feed bag and sling the bag up side a tree to thrash the peas out of the hulls. Not saying you want to do that. But here's the part that might help you. When he poured the mix out of the bag he would set up a fan and pour the mix out of the bag into a bucket in front of the fan. Peas went into the bucket, broken up hulls n trash got blown away by the "breeze". If you don't have a good breeze, you can make that too.

 

[6011Artist]

not sure if this would work but I'm going to throw it out there for you to think about.

One poster said he would put grain in a plastic container with a lid and shake it to get the grain free. I've seen a device built out of a 55 gallon barrel where you basically cut a hole up against the side on the top of the barrel and then cut another hole on the other end of the barrel but on the other side as well. You then slide a pipe through both holes and weld up both ends to the barrel, leaving a foot or so sticking out of the top and bottom. You make a set of arms to hang the barrel in so you can spin it using the pipe as your rotating shaft, and by having the pipe going through different sides of the barrel it not only rotates but gives it a left to right "shift" as well. Cut a door in the top of the barrel to load the grain into and when you want to empty it out that same door is rotated to be on the bottom if unloading. Set up a 5 gallon or bigger bucket and rake it out of the barrel into the bucket with the fan making a breeze. It's not the fastest way but for a small amount this could work. The rig I saw was used to mix several different seeds together and then put into a cone style slinger distrubitor. It worked well to mix, why couldn't it work to seperate?

To turn this barrel you can use a hand crank or rig an electric motor to do your turning for you. And to get it gear reduced i think the motor and controls off of an old treadmill should have sufficient H.P. and you can control the speed with the speed dial used on the treadmill. You could rig it up on the 3ph but you'd still need a gear reducer/gearbox probably.

Also, you could use a clean concrete mixer to thrash it around in if you find one on the cheap or want something you can buy ready made to do it.

Now getting it out of the field and into the barrel is the hard part.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Thanks, the pics from BHD were just what I needed. From them I think I can make what I need. Now all I need to do is make it and grow the crops. Hope 1112floid get all he needs.

 

[6011Artist]

BHD's idea would work well and you could let your wife peddle it for you....now we talkin....lol.

You could take his idea and build one in a 55 gallon barrel and cut it like you were making a grill so you could open the top to load.

 

[Ed of all trades]

I will prob. peddle it with an electric motor or an old tiller motor I have. I have to keep my wife happy and having her peddle is not a good way to do that. She treats me good so I return the favor.

 

[BHD]

number of years ago, I made a grass seed striper, basically a big brush that sweeps the grass and knocks the seed off and into a box,
I read a post similar to this one so I took it out and tried it on wheat, and as far as stripping the seed off, it did a great job, the problem was that a lot of heads and white caps (part of the head still covered the wheat berry and it need cleaning


I never tried it but my thought was if I want to continue this process to take two tire, (like on a garden tractor rear end, and space them so the treads touched, but put sprockets on them and run them with a few RP Ms difference, say a 40 tooth sprocket and a 36 tooth sprocket, (maybe smaller, most likely have to go by trial and error to find the correct ratio) and by air pressure one could adjust the pressure in the tires to get the proper pressure, or one could spring load one side,

any way then feed the raw wheat and threshing through the tires basically hulling it, as it would be spun going through the tires,

and then I think the product that come out of that would be able to cleaned on a fanning mill or a winnowed, with reasonable ease,

most grass seed brush strippers are usually fairly narrow, mine is 8' wide but many are only 4 foot, some use sidewalk brushes, mine used weed eater twine, and one can see I only have 4 vanes it does not need a lot of bristles,

as one can see in the Drawing the brush sweeps off the seeds and puts them in a box, I used window screen to let the air out,

but a unit just a few feet wide would do for an acer or less and could be pulled with a lawn tractor or ATV, there is a before and after picture of the wheat,

and a picture of the product in the box, there are a lot of berries in the bottom of the box,

my guess is the product off the stationary chinese type thresher, would not be much better than the product off the seed stripper,