Farm Collector – March 2019

Farm Collector

Well-preserved relic

The project began with a close examination to assess con-

dition. “The Humming Bird was in very good condition,”

Corren says. “I was told that years ago, at the end of a har-vest season, the thresher was stored in that old shed, and

it was never brought back out again until the fall of 2011.

That’s when it was donated to the Threshermen’s show.”Work began the following spring. A few boards that held

parts together were rotted out on the neck, where grain en-

ters the machine. Rotted supports were also replaced. “We examined the walkers inside that actually do the threshing,”

Corren recalls, “and were relieved to see that they were still all attached and not damaged at all.”

Next, all the panels on one side had to be removed.

“Thankfully, none of the parts broke while we were tear-ing it apart and working on it,” Corren says. Following that,

all the dents had to be pounded out from the inside. “We

wanted to get it looking right,” he says.

Plexiglass required precision

had a chance. “We tore it apart and cleaned it out,” Corren Corren and Scott worked on the thresher whenever they

says. “The original metal plates were all riveted in, so when

we cut the bolts and removed the metal, the holes for the rivets were still there for us to use.”

moved. Two were identical, but others were varied. “We The next step was measuring sizes of panels they’d re-

used cardboard to make templates to show where the plexi-

glass needed to be cut to fit various angles,” he says, “and used those templates to trace onto the plexiglass.”

Then the thresher was on the move again, transport-

ed to the home of a Threshermen’s board member expe-rienced in working with plexiglass. “It’s easy to chip and

crack if you don’t do it correctly,” Corren says. “He cut the

plexiglass to the sizes we needed, and helped us figure out how to get the pieces on the thresher.”

had been drilled in the plexiglass, we inserted the bolts and Finally, it was time for installation. “With the holes that

put them into the rivet holes,” Corren says. “I was on the

outside, and someone had to be on the inside to hold the nut on the back side and tighten it down. The most dif-

ficult part was probably doing a lot of things that had to be

done, and finding out that it was a lot more work than I’d thought. It’s an old machine, and some spots were difficult

to get into. Also it was hard trying to take apart the machine

without damaging it. We wanted it to be as close to the original condition

as possible.”

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1. One of the panels that was removed to make way for plexiglass retains the company name.


2. storage, all were intact and undamaged. The Humming Bird’s straw walkers are fashioned from wood. Thanks to years of dry


3. A counterweight on the Humming Bird’s grain auger counts the number of bushels
   harvested.


4. Original belts had been stored inside the thresher for years; many were still usable.
   Photos this page by Bill Vossler.

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