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North Iowa | As far as history is concerned, Denny Duello (sp?) started building them in Vinton, Iowa in the old Hawk-Bilt plant. The first ones were manufactured in the mid to late 80's, the exact year escapes me, tho. Another poster mentioned even seeing one of the Black Machines with Deere vac units, I'm fairly sure that fully HALF of the earlier BM's were 7200 Deere Vac units. Yes, you ordered the BM bar from your dealer, who hung the units you preferred on. The Deere block man asked the Deere dealer close to Vinton why they ordered so many row units separate from planters, and BM was the response. Back then the seed corn growers liked the Black Machine, because without much modification at all, you could make a 13 row 30inch planter out of it, and get a nice 4-1 F-M pattern in the seed field. Weak points of the earlier ones: Welds holding the 1" hinge pins were substandard, most broke in the first year, had to be ground out and re-welded; marker shear bolts were through mild steel frame members, after it sheared a time or two, the holes were wallowed out, needed to be drilled larger, then would not shear - fix was to overbore the hole, and hard sleeve it to original specs; gears in the transmission were cheap pressed metal, would not hold up, replace with Deere gears; OEM chain was non-USA origin, again, would not last first season, use USA chain and problem solved. Early ones were 12-30" / 13-15", rigid, no flex. The front row in narrow row configuration was a challenge to fill with soybeans every other round, too. Oh yeah, you had to stand outside beside the tongue to fold and unfold, using four unmarked levers. IF you did it correctly, it worked slick. WHEN you had a brain fart or got tired and pushed the wrong lever the wrong way, you got to purchase new insecticide hoppers, (twice) or worse, a row unit shank (once)
HTH, had one along time ago... suffering from CRS ;)
Hank | |
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Black Machine Planters
