BRANDON – Farmers are often better at engineering than engineers.
Prairie agricultural history includes thousands of implement inventions, innovations and improvements devised by the guys in the field running the machines.
The more complicated the machine, the more room for farmers to make improvements.
That’s the situation Dallas Skayman found himself in recently.
Until this winter, Skayman has been known mainly for his seeding openers. He admitted the move into combines was a giant step into complexity.
The owner of Skayman’s Welding-Machining in Hamiota, Man., said Case combines have a long history on his family’s farm. His brothers are troubleshooters for one of Manitoba’s largest Case dealerships.
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“Well, we started seeing white caps in the grain tank. In flax, we were seeing the bolls coming through into the hopper,” Skayman said.
“We wanted to solve the problem, but we just couldn’t make it happen with the concaves we had to work with. So we decided to design something better, because after all, that’s what we do here.”
The result is the Skayman Hard Thresh Concave, introduced this winter at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon. It’s now available for all newer model Case combines.
Skayman said the first thing they did was tighten the quarter inch gap between the wires to three-sixteenths by using bigger diameter wires.
“I know it doesn’t sound like much, but that’s the main thing that solved the problem,” Skayman said.
Then they lowered the wires one-eighth of an inch.
“You wouldn’t think an eighth inch drop would make any difference, but it does. It’s enough that it feels like a huge difference if you run your fingers over them. We kept the cross bars at the exact same height so you can change up from an existing concave and not have to re-zero it out again.”
Because the Skayman concaves fit exactly the same as the original equipment manufacturer concaves, a producer can install the new ones and keep the others as spares should the combine swallow a rock.
“But you shouldn’t have as many incidents with these concaves,” he said.
“They’re made a little tougher than the originals. The originals are a lighter material. They tend to bend up and spring off the posts more.”
He said other than a rock incident, producers will have little reason to switch back to the original concaves.
“These concaves are good for just about any crop. Wheat, canola, flax. They’ll harvest just about anything except peas. Peas are a huge seed, so that’s the glitch.”
Although the concaves are made of conventional mild steel, Skayman said it’s difficult to keep the geometry and measurements exact when manufacturing the concave.
“It’s all laser cut. You have to be so careful not to get it too hot or else it’ll warp. So the laser has to keep moving around all the time to keep the steel as cool as possible.
“There’s over 600 holes in a concave. You can’t set the computer up to just start at one end and run down to the other end cutting holes along the way.
“So the software makes the laser jump around all over the place cutting holes. We had to spend a lot of money to develop the software program to run that laser.”
And just when the Skaymans thought their headaches were over, the biggest one began.
“All those wires are installed by hand. That’s a lot of big wires. That’s the real pain in the neck in this process.”
The Skayman Hard Thresh Concave lists at $700 per concave.
For more information, phone Dallas Skayman at 204-764-2290.
