If you like functional …you will like this…pure and simple
A couple of years ago, my daughter and her family bought an older used picking machine to help at harvest time on their 16 acres of organic blueberries.
The ‘buckets’ that carry the berries from the thresher up the conveyor belt to the tray for sorting were getting holes in them and berries were being lost……$ $
My son-in-law, Bill…… being a mechanical engineer, designed the new buckets and bought some 1/8” food safe conveyor belt material for me to cut new ones. The fabric is very heavy duty multi-ply cotton and polyester. Made quite a bit of smoke, but otherwise, cut very well.
Here are a couple of the new ones installed. Bill will likely offer other local farmers that have machines like this, the opportunity to purchase replacement buckets
Super cool. I was a little confused because I thought the last photo was the newly installed ones…I was going to ask you about the new ones having holes.
They have been at it now for 7 - 8 years and have not yet once broken even. Every year it’s a different problem. So far this year it’s still sort of ‘meh’, but they will be having one more harvest before summer is over, so we remain hopeful…as always. They are way overdue for a better outcome. Organic farmers have a much more difficult time than those who use chemicals, etc. And to add insult to injury, a couple of years ago, they had to spend about $10k on putting deer fencing around the berries.
Ah, you mean the 200 dollar jeans that have less fabric than the 20 dollar ones? Price of fashion…I wear my jeans until they are hole-y, then I continue to wear them. Back then, I used to have to patch them up so people didn’t look at me funny. I don’t even bother anymore
I was amazed back when going to the Mall was a thing. I can understand pre-wearing out but they were down right weird in how it was “worn out” having no natural or artistic reasoning.
While I applaud the GF cut bags, what really makes me go “Wow!” is the picking machine. It’s an incredible example of ingenuity and inventiveness. And there are lots of other similar machines built for other crops and other purposes. It just amazes me what someone can come up with to do something human hands were required to do. (What’s ironic is I’m in the computer business and take for granted that I’m working to make machines do things that human minds were required to do and I think that’s no big deal )
Niche purposed machines like this are just fascinating to me. I can’t spend any time around them without trying to figure out how they work and how they might be made better. I’ve been to the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village and spent entire days just looking at the old machines. Drives my wife & kids crazy
I understand…that’s my son-in-law, too. He designs platforms for tower cranes but in his heart he’s an inventor and loves figuring out how stuff works and loves tweaking them.
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