In Reply to: N6 settings posted by peana on July 25, 2002 at 12:47:24:

Haven't done any tall fescue, but have threshed

Bluegrass the last two seasons which should be

harder to thresh, as it is smaller and lighter

seed. I use rigid airfoil chaffers in my

machines, although if you are going to buy some

you might want to consider the adjustables to

keep some of the material off the seive. I tried

the small seed kits. Ended up throwing them in

the scrap pile because they plugged up with

straw and chaff ect. Instead I just built some

panels 5"wide by the width of the seperator with

a 1" lip all the way around, and rivoted them

to the lip on the fan housing thus choking the

fan more. Now I can run the fan choke at about

3.5-4 most of the time. You will need a little

more air than that probably. The seive will want

to be about 1/8-3/16" open to start with. I run

the concave about 1/2-5/8 open and the cylinder

anywhere from 800 up to 980 rpms depending on

conditions. Your fescue should be easier to

knock out so you probably won't have to be

as aggressive. Don't be afraid to experiment.

Always remember that the guys that write those

operators manuals are not farmers and generally

haven't spent much time making a combine work.

Everyone told me that Gleaners won't do bluegrass

seed worth a hoot and are barely acceptable for

fescue and ryegrass. Even the dealers and the

factory reps said this. This is true if you want

to leave the machine set for wheat. I got pretty

discouraged until I finally decided that these

combines have pretty much all the same stuff

inside as anything else (JD,IH)that will do a

good job on these crops, plus they have some

things that the others don't (accel rolls, dist.

augers, pnuematic cleaning). Once I stopped

lamenting and started thinking, I learned that

with very little work I could make my $15K N6 do

as good a job as those other high $ machines.

The key for me and it may be for your fescue is

to learn how to feed the shoe. This is done by

making the distribution augers do their job-that

is spreading the material evenly on the shoe.

These machines are alot like a computer-they

will do anything you are smart enough to make

them do-that's where my challenge was. You just

have to stop and think, and usually all it takes

is a little sheet metal and about 20 minutes and

you can solve most any problem. If one side of the shoe is overloading, make the material go

where you want it to go.

Didn't mean to get so windy. The main thing is

don't be afraid to go against the "conventional

wisdom".