Oh boy, this brought back memories of swathing grass seed back in the day. I also remember the days of rivets in holding these sickle sections to the bar. Changing these in the field could be tricky in the middle of the night, which is when we did our windrowing. I remember carrying this heavy hunk of steel that we could put under the bar so we could beat on it a bit with a hammer to mushroom over the ends of the rivets to clamp them down tight... all while trying to not slice or mash your fingers in the dim light. Things improved markedly when the switch was made to nuts and bolts. 😉
Thank you for the story! That sounds dangerous. I had forgotten about the piece of metal, but I do remember the rivets. Surely we did them in winter in the shop and hopefully not in the field at night!
Thanks Trevor. The last time I did that was with single riveted knives on a 16' sickle bar - a grinder (or chisel out in the field), and punch to remove the rivet and a dolly underneath to act as a bolster prior to hammering!
All over seen are just drive from one side. Yeah its still normally on just one bar. The 40 and 45 foot ones ive heard can be in sections so you dont have to replace the whole bar if it breaks.
