The Nichols & Shepard Excello Separator and the Reason For Building It
January/February 1955
MARCUS LEONARD
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The Nichols & Shepard EXCELLO Thresher.
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Salina, Kansas
Straw racks in Red River Special steel separators with 15 bar
cylinders, built prior to 1925, consisted of five shakers. The
first four shakers were carried and driven by the Brady shaker
carriers on the inside of the separator. Those shaker carriers were
carried by four wooden, hangers pivoted at the top. Two wooden
hangers attached to the sides of each of the four shakers of the
rack and pivoted from the top. Those hangers were on the inside of
the separator and moved close to the sides of the separator. When
the carriers moved ahead and back, the arms attached to the sides
of the shakers and pivoted at the top, produced the up and down
movement of the shakers. The last shaker was carried by four
hangers on the outside of the separator and driven by two short
pitmans from the shaker carriers.
Wild oats was plentiful in 1923 on the Minneapolis Territory.
Wild oats straw did not dry cure and become brittle as did domestic
oats, barley and wheat straw. It wound around shafts and collected
where other straw caused no trouble.
The wheat crop on the Salina Block was short in 1923 and Nichols
and Shepard Company inquired about my going north. I never had
worked in the north and told the company I would be pleased to go.
Nichols and Shepard Company instructed me to report to the
Minneapolis Branch and I arrived there ahead of schedule.
I was not there long, until I learned the tough wild oats straw
was causing straw rack trouble in the steel separators by
collecting between the shaker arms and the sides of the separators.
So much straw finally collected, it bulged the sides of the
separator and created so much friction, it was necessary to stop
and remove the straw. The service men seemed unable to do anything
to prevent it.
Nichols & Shepard Company considered re-designing the
separator in such a way, the hangers would have been on the outside
of the separator to overcome that trouble but it would have been
costly to build and the company decided to build a differently
designed separator. Nichols & Shepard Co., before building the
new machine, wrote their salesmen and inquired, which separator
they premerred, a Case or a Wood Bros.
Nichols & Shepard Co., bought a Wood Bros. separator,
shipped it to the factory and built 300 Excellos.