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Lely's most iconic design

ttheelen

May be the Acrobat 2x2 rake is Lely's most iconic design ever. This rake was designed (and patented of course) in 1955 as a further development of the hay rake of 1948. This machine can be found all over the world and many manufacturers produced it under license. Exactly this same design is still being manufactured by several companies worldwide after 70! years. Still very popular for road (berm) works. The famous model maker "Britains'' made a model of it. I had one in my young days, 50 years ago! Tell me if you had the same machine for behind your Britains toy tractor.

I attached the drawing of Lely's 1955 patent.

Parents

  • Nice story Ton!! I have quite a collection, but I believe this one is still missing. Ton, do you perhaps know what the drive, the motivation was to design this rake and its shape? 

  • in reply to Berry Pasman

    The 1948 design had 6 ground driven wheels straight in line which could only rake the hay in one swath. This design can easily converted into 3 different operating modes by turning a wheel set 180 degrees: 1) 4 rakes rake the hay into 1 single swath; 2) swaths or 3) 4 swaths. This last mode is the tedding mode which turns the hay into so called windrows (see the patent drawing below). So this design made it possible to operate the machine as a rake or as a tedder for turning the grass/hay for better drying.

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  • in reply to Berry Pasman

    The 1948 design had 6 ground driven wheels straight in line which could only rake the hay in one swath. This design can easily converted into 3 different operating modes by turning a wheel set 180 degrees: 1) 4 rakes rake the hay into 1 single swath; 2) swaths or 3) 4 swaths. This last mode is the tedding mode which turns the hay into so called windrows (see the patent drawing below). So this design made it possible to operate the machine as a rake or as a tedder for turning the grass/hay for better drying.

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