Cuz Casey, I think you are correct, I think that Harris went to the sheet metal machines sometime in the mid 30’s. I don’t know when this machine was made but I do remember Don McCornack telling me that he remembered it, sitting, shiny brand new, on a trailer of some kind in front of the 41 cafe in Shandon when he was just a little kid, I would imagine he was born around 1930. I think this machine had a Hercules engine, but I wouldn’t swear to it, but it was set up for bulk or sacks, either way. Harris used their own engines on the up-top mount, I don’t know why they quit using it. I can tell you one thing, as a kid (I could just climb up the ladders) I probably harvested over a million and a half acres (at least:) ) by myself just sitting up there and running that header wheel without moving a bit, didn’t even have a tractor hooked to it, but I was still harvesting. I never saw it move, I was told by the time it was parked in the early 1950’s that it was so loose that it would shed all its chains when crossing a ditch, it was left to the squirrels and elements for fifty years or so and finally what was left was finished off by the scrappers for the big steel wheels,

---

nothing left except those two pictures. Come to think of it, I do have the metal seat that was on it, I beat the scrappers to that at least.
I wonder what 30-38 means in Harris lingo, now I got to tell you, this machine when coupled to the TD18 was the latest and greatest because they didn’t have to bean the cat skinner, I remember an old rusted bell ( a spring loaded dinger that still worked) in the cab of the 18 that was activated by a rope to get somebody’s attention.
Here are a few pics of level land, wooden Harris combines sitting in the San Joaquin County Ag Museum, a must see if you are traveling HWY 99 between Stockton and Lodi, CA. not a great distance from Fresno CA, where they were originally built. Notice the radiator, a little bit of retro fit, these machines I believe came with a horizontal drum with the large open tubes type radiator. The inside machine I think was a ground drive but obviously had been inside its whole life, a real beauty and in great shape. I went on this trip looking for several old combines that I had caught a few glimpses of on the internet, one was a Holt-Western Harvester Co model 32 and the other was a Haines Houser(forerunner of Holt) ground drive machine, the second oldest one known, and I saw them both, the model 32 and a model 30 in the San Joaquin Ag museum and the H&H in the Haggin museum ,downtown Stockton, where they have a whole wing dedicated to Holt MFG,called Holt Hall, also a must see. I have pictures I can post if anyone would like. Thanks; Tad

Tad- nope most ag cats around here run without rock guards, never have much of a problem

Atlas- yes practices varied alot but generally the stubble was moldboard plowed in the fall and then disked in the spring in my area back in the pull combine days. In the palouse some of the straw was too heavy for the plows of the time so it was burned first but that was not a good practice and thats when those horrific 200 + ton/acre erosion rates were common. In this area moldboard plowing was the only method of primary tillage until the 70s and 80s when chisel plows and heavy disks became more widely used on lighter residue.


Bret4207- yep I think Idaho is a pretty good place to live, but the past 15 years or so there has been alot of retired folks from California, Western WA and places like that moving in. They are the conservative crowd escaping from the more liberal areas but they still like to try to change the way we do things. More rules and regulations on things now. One guy that was a big wig firefighter in California moved here and joined the volunter fire dept. and wouldnt let a neighbor fight fire below his property a couple years ago because he wasnt a member of the department.....absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.

NIF......oh Gawd, don't get me started on the fire fighting deal.........
.....we have had to have a couple of 'come to Jesus' meetings around here
about THAT........went to a bad one near The Dalles a couple of years back
& the local rent-a-cops got it in their heads to stop ALL traffic. Took just a few seconds before the farmers w/ 4X4 pickups with fire fighting gear on board just started driving around their stupid little road blocks. The local FD thought it would be a good deal to let the fire burn over to the hi-way where it would be handy to put out........the farmers wanted to get out in the field & get after it so they could go back to harvesting.......you get one guess who put it out.
A typical lineup at one of our worst locations for a fire......the Deschutes Canyon ( fire courtesy of our pals at BNSF RR):



The river fires really suck..........too steep to use the pickups, so a lot of
'idiot stick' work has to be done before we can get back to work;



......oh swell.....more fire further up river.

Oh fires in harvest time...

Our one neighbour (who was also dad's cousin) had the habit of burning his contour ditches after he'd done with a field. Well, 9 times out of 10 the wind picked up, or changed direction, and the stubble were on fire running before the wind.
All the neighbours would get their fire fighting teams on the go, and put the fire out before uncle Charlie even realized the fire had run away...
So it happened on a regular basis until one day Dad just had enough of the stupidity of this guy. Fire was put out, and as uncle Charlie and his bedraggled looking guys rocked up and before they even got off the pickup, Dad walked up to him: "Now listen here Charlie, and listen well: If you ever again start a fire when your neighbours are still harvesting, I'll personally come and give you a good dusting-off, and then I'll sue the pants off your backside, and off the rest of the guys working with you on this farm."
Needless to say, there were no more fires after that lil' "warning".

Seeing all those pictures of the steep hillsides makes the Overberg hills around here look like flat plains...
And the shots are done SO well! Makes me want to go out there and start a series on wheat farming in the Overberg (over the mountain) and the Swartland (black lands/field) areas here in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Normally, I don't have time at a fire to take any snaps.....usually way too busy.
But.......I do have a few taken when conditions permitted.

This one was a particular PITA.....started on a Sat. afternoon by some Jackass
fisherman down along I-84.....spent the late afternoon & into the evening
getting it knocked down. Given where it was ( some of it vertical) we knew then
that we would be back. No pics on Sat.....but sure nuff, we were back late Sunday afternoon. Shot this on the way in out the window.....just jumped a
disked fire break.....



Impossible to get out all the hot spots soooooooo........we are back at this turkey Monday afternoon. The fire was burning in a strip between I-84 and
a bench above the river & the hi-way. One of the neighbors got a big disk
in on the bench and made several passes.....we came in with the pickups
and went on standby to make sure the fire didn't jump the fire break..........
a smoky, stinky job for a while. One of our crew grabbing a shovel from my
rig:


The smoke is clearing a little now......a line of rigs ready to go & barely visible
down the line is a D4D w/ a blade brought in to help out:


We had to just let the fire burn it's way west along the strip until we got to
a place where we could pinch it off. They took the D4 over the side and pushed a fire trail down to some sand dunes.......boxed the fire in & let it
burn itself out. The D4 can be seen here at the edge of the dunes. This
is looking west towards The Dalles w/ the Columbia River visible in the upper
right of the frame:



Ready for more if needed:

"Tad wrote:

North Idaho Farmer

No rock guards????? almost unheard of around here, but boy they can be a PITA. Thanks Tad

There were a few rigs with rock guards on around here, but they were the
exception. Some guys had the forward section only on, not for rock protection but to help with track alignment on the steeper ground. This D6B is set up that way:



Like NIF said, the steep terrain really doesn't bother the undercarriage like
speed does. Still, I run my D5 in 5th a lot and the rails & rollers have close
to 6000hrs. SALT links BTW.......love 'em. ( you can get a whole bunch of
different response to that )

When the Challengers hit the country, it didn't take long to figure out that
this " T-pee" shield is a must in our conditions:



With out it, dirt comes off the drivers ( esp. on steep ground) and piles
up on the guide blocks. Get on something nasty enough & get enough dirt
flying around, you can end up with a belt off. Not fun. A couple of guys
learned the hard way. ( that's my pal Kirby keeping the seat warm for me)

This 65A didn't have the shield for a while. After dealing with thrown belts
a couple of times, the owner wised up & had them installed:



A pretty good testimonial to how tough a Cat product is......this 65A was
rode pretty hard.......and then put away wet.

The biggest cause for wear on the belts is not operating on steep ground;
it's the roadwork that kills them. Speed kills......

Great shots of the wood combines, BTW.

Hi Team,
at The Dealer we had one unit used on road, it towed a scraper for land levelling and the client used to road it from job to job.
He started to experience tread wear and hard turning, we simply found that he was not running the reccommended inflation pressure in the bogie air bags. This makes the tractor weight ride on the driver's and idler's and spreads the track footprint over a longer distance there by adding to the turning effort needed and hence the exagerated tread wear. I believe it also rode harsher.
Another machine used to wear one track and we found that the client was ploughing with the draw bar pinned. We found this hard to believe, and, The Dealer being predominately earthmoving orientated we were at a loss to explain the wear until our Tech Rep went out and noted the drawbar.
Once the drawbar was unpinned the plough self centered and the machine ran true without steering input to go straight. The plough had adjustable draw hitch but this only gets it close, we believe.

This has been a most enlightening thread for me, and others I'm sure. Thanks for taking the time to tell us about things we would not learn anywhere else about the Farming side of our interest.
I recall sitting half on the armrest of the TD15 I operated in the Army in 'Nam doing batters, good pucker material, as shown in your sidehill operations.
Thanks and Cheers,
Eddie B.

Rock guards? Most of the cats that my family has still have cork filling the threaded holes.

The biggest problem with rock guards is mud will pack in there and it is hard for the operator to take it out.

Can't forget the orange crawlers

Found some old harvestors of the area.

1900 horse drawn Best. This was before land leveling, they would plant a crop every other or every third year in between they would use a weeder bar or a blade to cut weeds and conserve moisture.

Neighbors 1914 Harris with a 24' header, still operates.