Combines What is a direct cut headerIJIJIJ

As far as I know it's just a regular header with a sickle bar and reel. European harvesting practices may explain this. When I was in southern Germany many years ago, I saw a Claas combine (looked like the first Ford_Claas in Green) harvesting wheat I think. It had a header not much wider than the drive wheels and was really moving. The crop variety had a lot longer straw than you would see on the plains for example and what surprised me was they cut the crop as close to the ground as they could putting almost all of the straw through the machine. I guess that's why European combines have alot of walker area and extra beaters in front of or behind the cylinder. I guess the straw was left in windrows for baling . I think the bar had lifters on it to help feed down and lodged crops into the header. I assume that harvesting in England and other European countries would be similar to what I saw in Germany. If that Gleaner was used to cut long strawed oats in similar way, maybe that could that explain the cylinder grabbing the crop before it was cut off. I don't know if this would explain it.

Thank you for telling me this I could not imagine what kind of a header that would be they are problably just a regular header. I really did not mean that part about it being junk. I know they are good machines. Thanks.

The other thing that may have been happening is some of the older Gleaners used to have the cylinder right down in the bottom of the feeder house. They didn't have a feeder chain and the cylinder was right there behind the auger on the header.

Boy I have never seen one with the cylinder right down in front. Is that on AMERICAN or BRITISH built Gleaner'sIJ Thanks for the information.

Many of the older Gleaners here in the US had the "Down Front" cylinder. Some not even that old. There are still many l, M and F (l2,l3,M2,etc.)series combines used here that have the down-front cylinder design.

Do you mean the the cylinder is right behind the header auger without a beater drum between them. Thanks for the reply.

Yes that would be correct. If memory serves me right, you could actually see the cylinder bars when looking into the feederhouse, from the front of the machine (directly behind the header auger). My family never did run Gleaners much, but I did run an l2 briefly about 10 years ago for a friend. We also ran 3 model A Baldwin's (predecessor to Gleaner) back when I was about 6yrs old. Anyway, I'm not certain whether there is an impeller_beater before the cylinder or not. If you want to find out more on the down-front cylinder design, I would suggest asking on the Gleaner directory. I'm sure you would get a response, as the l2 series machines were highly popular in wheat country, and there are still many of them out there each harvest.

I see in my book on Allis Chalmers that the model A in 1955 had a roll in front of the cylinder, also did the model R but used a raddle type separator to carry the straw from the combine and had no walkers.

The model R raddle machines are rare where I live. I have read of a mode B Gleaner with a spike tooth cylinder. I wonder if the model B has walkers or a raddleIJ Thanks for the reply.

My book says that the model B was a A but modified for rice, with bigger tires and sometimes was called a model AB. So it was likey a walker combine. It was made between 1953 and 1963.