Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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This invention relates to implements for mowing grass or
like materials and for picking up the mown materials and
others strewn or disposed in orderly manner or randomly, at
ground, floor or other level.
Thus, the invention incorporates a flail member which
may be employed in a carpet sweeping machine, in a street
sweeping machine, for mowing grass or weeds, and gathering
hay whether windrowed or randomly disposed on the ground, for
picking up mown material from the ground surface and so on.
Although the invention subject hereof is usefully
applicable with the generality just indicated, it is
primarily intended for use as a grass mower or in the picking
up of seed or other crop materials which are vulnerable to
mechanical damage when impactually picked up and then flung
some considerable distance into a receiver bin or the like.
Because of this the invention is described herein mainly in
terms of two embodiments of the invention for use in the
primarily intended manner indicated.
It is well known to pick up mown or strewn materials and
impel them into a required location by use of rotors equipped
with flail members in the form of rigid pick-up blades or
battens of timber, sheet metal or the like, and it is also
well-known to provide such rigid blades with a distal edge
margin which is angularly offset relative to the general
plane of the blade, so to project forwardly in the direction
in which the blades or battens rotate. This provision of a
forwardly inclined distal edge portion means that when the
material is picked up from the ground, it is picked up with
what may be called a spooning or up-scooping action so that
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each particle of the material bouncing off the blade is
re-directed with a component of upward motion, thus to
ensure that the picked up particle is simply not bounced
back to the general level from which it came when it was
first hit by the mowing and or gathering blade.
Rigid flail members of the kind just discussed are
quite effective when the matters to be picked up are not
vulnerable to mechanical damage, or it does not matter if
they should be damaged. The present invention, however,
goes beyond this by imparting to the picked up particles
the required elevatory spooning action while at the same
time contacting the material particles during the course
of pick up entirely by yielding surfaces composed wholly
of pliant material.
Thus, an object of an aspect of the present invention
is to provide a mowing or a pick-up or gathering implement
incorporating a rotor, the blades of which are of such
pliancy that they stand radially erect from the shaft on
which they are mounted and have forwardly inclining
distal edge margins established entirely by the centri-
fugal force engendered upon rapid rotation of the rotor.
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2351
Various aspects of the invention are as follows:
A gathering implement comprising: (a) a rotor
consisting of a central drive shaft and a plurality of aprons
of pliant sheet material, each attached by one side edge to
and longitudinally of said shaft; (b) means to support said
rotor and travel it so that the distal longitudinal marginal
portions of said aprons sweep into the material to be gather-
ed; (c) means to rotate said rotor while it is being travel-
led as aforesaid; and (d) on each of said marginal portions
a weighting element which extends longitudinally of its
marginal portion, is secured eccentrically to the rear, non-
gathering face of said portion; and, upon rotation of said
rotor, causes said marginal portions due to centrifugal
force, to become angled relative to the remainder of its apron
and projected towards the direction in which said apron is
turning, thereby to form an up-scooping distal edge portion
on said apron.
A flail member for a rotary gathering or moving
implement incorporating a shaft and means to rotate it, said
member comprising: (a) an apron of pliant sheet material
having a proximal edge fixedly secured to and longitudina~ly
of said shaft; and (b) a weighting element which extends
along and is eccentrically secured to the distal edge margin
of said apron on the trailing face of said margin so that
upon rotation of said shaft sufficient for centrifugal out-
flinging of said element, said apron bends in the vicinity
of said margin to become angled relative to the remainder
of said apron and projected towards the direction in which
said shaft is turning.
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Two examples of the invention are shown in the drawings
herewith. The drawings are largely schematic in illustrating
general construction rather than specifically designed
embodiments of the invention.
Fig. l is a plan of a mowing and gathering implement
adapted to be mounted on the three-point linkage of a common
tractor and to be driven by a normal power take-off from the
gear box of such a vehicle.
Fig. 2 is an end view of the rotor shown in Fig. l taken
along the line 2-2 in Fig. l.
Fig. 3 is a section through a distal edge margin of a
flail member according hereto when not subjected to
centrifugal force.
Fig. 4 repeats Fig. 3 except for showing the distal
margin under the influence of centrifugal force.
Fig. S shows an end view of a collector trunk within
which a rotor of the kind shown in the previous figures may
be employed.
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Figs. 6 and 7 are views respectively similar to Figs. 3
and 4 of an alternative emdodiment of a flail member.
Referring to Figs. 1 to 4, a rotor 8 consists of a
central drive shaft 9 and a plurality of flail members in the
form of pliant aprons 10. Each of the aprons is attached by
one of its longitudinal side edges to and along shaft 9, and,
in the illustrated embodiment, this shaft is mounted in
bearings 11 mounted on a frame member 12 equipped with usual
support end arrangements indicated at 13 for mounting and
raising and lowering an implement in coventional manner on
the three-point suspension mechanism of a tractor. Means to
rotate the rotor may consist of a sprocket drive 14 leading
to shaft 9 by way of counter-shaft 15, bevel gears 16 and
universally iointed telescopic drive shaft indicated at 17.
Each of the pliant aprons 10 is furnished with a
weighting bead or rib 18 secured to the apron by being
integral therewith or separately formed and applied thereto.
These ribs 18 are so disposed that their centres of gravity
indicated at 19 are eccentric relative to the general plane
of a radially out-spread apron as represented by line 10 in
Figs. 3 and 4. When the rotor is quiescent, the pliant
aprons simply drape from the shaft, but when the shaft is
rotated at sufficient speed, the aprons assume radial
disposition relative to the shaft and the bead centre of
gravity 19 approaches the plane indicated at 20, so that in
the forward rotary movement of the rotor as indicated by
arrow 21, the apron becomes possessed of a forwardly inclined
distal edge marginal surface as indicated at 22.
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A rotor such as that described may be simply used
without accompaniment in the sense that it may be employed to
mow and or pick up matters from ground level and fling them
directly into a nearby receptacle vehicle or the like. On
the other hand, such a rotor as that already described is
indicated at 23 in Fig. 5 where the rotor operates inside a
trunk or casing 24 and is fed into the matters to be mown and
or picked up as indicated at 25, rotated in the direction
indicated by arrow 26 and the picked up material flung into
and through a chute 27 for disposal in any convenient manner.
Referring to Figs. 6 and 7, the principle just described
applies equally, in that a pliant apron 10A has a weighting
bead 18A fixed to the distal marginal portion of the apron so
that when the apron is quiescent as shown in Fig. 6, it is
devoid of a forwardly bent leading edge, and when it is
~ rotated rapidly in the direction indicated by arrow 21A, the
centre of gravity of the weighted rib advances towards the
plane of the apron thus giving a forwardly inclined
up-scooping edge surface 22A.
Although the flail members according hereto, when used
for the mowing of grass, weeds and the like do so with an
edge portion, such as 22 or 22A, which is pliant or
resilient; my experiments have shown that those edge
portions are quite effective in cutting or impactually
breaking grass blades, week stems and the like when presented
thereto as herein described.
