Since I went off on a tangent with last week's brochure, I thought I would continue in that direction today. You need something to get the ears from the wagon to the crib and the most common (and easiest) way is by using a flight elevator, or more specifically for today's brochure, a Kewanee elevator. At least in my part of the country, these were the most common elevator around (John Deere was a close second, followed by New Idea). This isn't the whole brochure in this case since the rest of the brochure is for the Kewanee Roller Mill and their augers. But I'm posting the section that deals with the flight elevators and continued into the wagon running gear section for good measure. Anyone out there have that "Cadillac" version with the hydraulic scissors lift??
Remember, if anyone has something specific to request for information, let me know. If I have it, I'll post it! Also, as we all (hopefully) get busy in the fields here pretty soon, I won't have time to post these here on a weekly basis. I'll post more when I can and THANKS for all of your kind remarks regarding this series!
I cant believe for the life of me why they quit making kewanee eqipment. The dics,auger,wagons and elevators were superb! Its like someone buying gleaner and quit making combines.
Back in the 50's and early 60's Dad had a Little Giant elevator that had a seperate "A" frame lift for what we called the flat bed wagons. It was a cable operated rig that had a built in gear winch. It was run from a shaft off of the elevator and had a lever to engage the gear winch. We would run a 2" pipe between the box and running gear at the front of the wagon, hook the steel cables to each end of the pipe and engage the winch to lift the front of the box from the running gear. Dad always said it was, "Dangerous as H-e-double hocky sticks". He had three flat bed wagons for grain. This was before we had hopper wagons.
Can't say I've ever seen another rig like it. The elevator was on 4 wheels and was belt driven to what he called a "speed jack" which was connected to the elevator via a square drive shaft. The "speed jack" was an open gear box with a belt pully. Measured about 2' x 3' and had to be staked to the ground. You could shift the speed jack to different gear ratios to change the speed of the elevator.
Seemed like it took forever to get the whole rig set up. Anybody ever hear of a Little Giant elevator???
Yeah, I've heard of them. They made flight elevators well in the 1980's and possibly later than that. The last one I saw of theirs was a high-capacity model built for moving large amounts of grain (but not ear corn). The last flight elevators that John Deere sold (the models 321 & 428) were built by Little Giant.
I have a 32 foot Little Giant double chain elevator. Used to have a 24' Little Giant single chain elevator here, too, but that one got bent beyond repair when a storm dropped a tree onto the shed roof, and thence a roof truss onto the elevator.
My Dad's "speed jack" was a 3 speed car transmission, with a belt pulley attached to the input shaft, and a tumbling rod from it to the elevator, and another tumbling rod out the other side to the wagon dump.
He would stake the speed jack down with Model "A" axle shafts to keep it from moving when he would back up the tractor to tighten the belt.
I was looking at those Kewanee running gears a little more closely . . . I have a late 70s Central Tractor running gear under a hay wagon that looks a lot like them. The later CT gears game from Kory . . . but did Kewanee make them at one time?
Tom, please post anything on elevators, especially if you have something on the JI Case Model E single chain with foldable sides, since I grew up with one. Do you have anything from the Harvey Machine Company? I have one of their Red Head shellers.
Anybody ever hear of a Little Giant elevator???
