FINGERLESS MOWER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30058, 16 February 1963, Page 6

FINGERLESS MOWER

In the last hundred years there have been very few changes to the basic design of cutter bars on mowers and harvesters, which utilise fixed fingers and a moving bar of knife segments. One of the most recent innovations has been the double knife system with two counter-moving knives.

Midway between these two systems is one recently developed in the United States which replaces the fingers with stubs which are bolted to the bar and carry knife plates of virtually the same size as the moving knives. A Christchurch agricultural engineer, Mr C. D. Rudd, recently imported a set of the American finger knives and has mounted them on a conventional cutter bar to be tried out this season. In a

trial near Lincoln the mower cut through a dense hay sward as efficiently as a popular conventional tractor mower working to the same paddock. One advantage the new system did have was that it undercut a mown swath without difficulty and the were no signs of dragging. The operator using the mower said that there was a complete absence of side puli on the steering of the tractor although it was rear mounted. . Mr Rudd says that a full season’s operation will be necessary to evaluate the mower under Canterbury conditions and to determine whether it has any major advantages over the conventional mower with fingers. The photograph shows views of the cutter bar from above and below.