Last year my Brother kindly salvaged the tool box, complete with the instruction manual form our circa 1940 IH combine with six foot cut. My best recollection of this old machine was of jumping up and down on a three foot cylinder wrench to try to turn the main cylinder backward or forward. If green vegetation such as milkweed or thistle were encountered rather than dry wheat or oat stalks, the green would hopelessly plug the machine and bind the main cylinder tight. Hand pulling the vegetation and turning the cylinder by wrench were required to clear the clog.
This was not a hillside combine, but a flatland machine powered by a four cylinder continental power unit as I recall and pulled by tractor. I am pleased that the instruction manual survived nearly seventy years in the IH tool box that was continually exposed to our NYS summers and winters. I will add some pictures from pages of that book. There are two cut away views to show the inner workings of those old machines for anyone not familiar with harvesting.
Charlie V.
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