Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The Sweep Auger


When I was young, my Dad still moved a lot of grain with a scoop. We had corn cribs to put 'ear corn' in. Then we got grain bins (for corn already shelled from the cob)
We were all so impressed that we didn't have to scoop grain out thru the door and into a wagon, that we celebrated only having to scoop it to the middle of the bin where there was hole for the grain to fall into a horizontal auger.
Even though the oldest bins we have were built in the late 50's, they were still 24 feet in diameter, so we scooped the last 1500 bushels the 12 feet to the middle.
Then my Brother borrowed one of these puppies. A 12 foot sweep auger. It travels in a circle around the bin and brings the corn to the middle where it falls in. All that's required is that someone clean up behind it. My Dad was 'agin' it when he first saw it. After all, how lazy can you get when you can't scoop 75000 pounds of corn to the middle of a bin. Dad used it once and he bought one.
Only drawback is that the dust in a soybean bin is usually so bad that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Here I have the aereation fan reversed to draw the dirt down and out.

6 comments:

Sandy said...

love your blog. agree COMPLETELY with your views on Terri Schiavo. Like the pics and captions (why you can't attract birds, why babies don't smile for pictures...HILARIOUS!)

bridgesitter said...

I understood everything you said Cliff. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Cliff,
I remember the days of using the "sweep". The dust was a killer. I REALLY hated cleaning out the milo bin. That is terrible dust! The best thing dad did was borrow someones grain vac. What a great machine!!

Cliff said...

Greg, I was pretty sure I'd get a comment from you on this one.

Anonymous said...

I can still smell the dust. I can also remember scooping corn into the truck after I forgot to look out the door and sse if the truck was full and overfilling it. The sweep doesn't work so well outside.

Anonymous said...

This is a test.