Lister elevators

Devil's advocate · Aug 4, 2020

Are many Lister elevators still working?

They must have looked smart when new. Does the company still exist?

I've only seen oldish ones with pain in the neck petrol engines.

Greythundercloudys · Aug 4, 2020

I remember my dad and his cousins trying to start a lister 40 years ago, l don't think they make them anymore. Seen an odd one in the scrap heap, and one for sale on Facebook, 350£,

Hilly · Aug 4, 2020

Getting rare now I’d say, Briggs & Stratton was the bug bear with them , essential to convert to Honda or electric.

Devil's advocate · Aug 4, 2020

Answered my own question.

Very old company Lister sold out in 1965 now part of British aerospace of course no longer involved in agriculture

R. A. Lister and Co - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

Hawker Siddeley - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

Hilly · Aug 4, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
Answered my own question.

Very old company Lister sold out in 1965 now part of British aerospace of course no longer involved in agriculture

R. A. Lister and Co - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

Hawker Siddeley - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

I still use the old shearing machines they have lasted well !

jondear · Aug 4, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
Are many Lister elevators still working?

They must have looked smart when new. Does the company still exist?

I've only seen oldish ones with pain in the neck petrol engines.

I've got one you can have.

Devil's advocate · Aug 4, 2020

jondear said:
I've got one you can have.

Thanks, but just remembering them & curious about the company. Sold out in 1965 so I guess most would be 1955 to 1965 maybe still made after takeover? Every farm had one when I was a boy & most farms were less than 100 acres in this area, back then.

Suffolksucklers · Aug 4, 2020

We still have one in the shed just in case we need it, thinking is if we get rid of it we are sure to want it one day and then won't be able to find one. Ours is electric drive

jondear · Aug 4, 2020

jondear said:
I've got one you can have.

Can't give it away!

4course · Aug 4, 2020

fitted a variablespeed gear box with electric motor and removed from frame/wheels so can use it flat low to ground as a conveyer with a bag stitcher or hang it on an angle for bales, still use it
in the 60s as a lad can remember one of the petrol engined ones starting a fire on the loose straw that collected underneath

Y Fan Wen · Aug 4, 2020

I helped a neighbour carry and stack bales in the 60s. He had an elevator which he had electrified himself. Some will remember that the engine had a reduction gear built in and then vee belt drive to the chain. He hadn't bothered with the reduction, driving direct onto the vee belt. Therefore the chain was running about twice normal speed. Result was that it was very difficult to drop the bale correctly without the chain flipping it off.

DrWazzock · Aug 4, 2020

Still use ours for small bales. It’s electric. Nice and quiet. Used to have petrol version onto which fitted a beet cleaner hopper. Getting that and the MF35 loader tractor started on a cold winters morning really tested my uncles patience. The smell of petrol fumes, sugar beet and soil, and diesel smoke was the smell of winter mornings. Noisy as well. In summer it would be puttering away putting bales onto stacks. With that engine running hot, and most likely with a disintegrated exhaust and everybody smoking fags while they worked it never failed to amaze me how the lot didn’t go up in smoke.

DrWazzock · Aug 4, 2020

There was an art to dropping bales on at the right time especially at steep angles. Bale needed to be just in front of lat, or it would slide back, hit lat and rear up and go over the side. Fair heap of bust ones by the time we had finished thanks also to elderly MF baler which specialised in making them like bananas.

Quaddog · Aug 4, 2020

We had one years ago, they saved a lot of work if you were pitching up to high lofts. I still have the Briggs & Stratton engine with the reducing gear on, don’t suppose I will ever use it, a bit temperamental. Big bales have been a revoloution.

bobk · Aug 4, 2020

We had one , remember because my old man put a pichfolk through my hand , not intentionally .

Netherfield · Aug 4, 2020

Quaddog said:
We had one years ago, they saved a lot of work if you were pitching up to high lofts. I still have the Briggs & Stratton engine with the reducing gear on, don’t suppose I will ever use it, a bit temperamental. Big bales have been a revoloution.

Does the engine still start?

Kidds · Aug 4, 2020

Still use mine regularly but for logs not bales. Catches the logs off the sawbench and sends them into a trailer or bulk bag. Replaced a few slats on it just last week.
Replaced the engine with a cheap Chinese version off eBay and it starts every time. Very useful machine but with the Brigs and Stratton it was a complete and utter waste of space.

Quaddog · Aug 4, 2020

Netherfield said:
Does the engine still start?

It ran when we used it but I took it off when we scrapped the elevator, and it’s been stored inside. That was years ago. Never really did much work so should be good.

Devil's advocate · Aug 4, 2020

Glad I started the thread, so many great comments.

Iconic machine really of the 60's, our Dad'd all had one.

I in my late teens & early 20's always ended up on the stack by my self. With some nutter sending the bales too fast & if I had a bust one or slipped down a gap in the stack would be buried in bales. Great machine if two on the stack & one on the trailer.

Did anyone have the toy one? My younger brother had the baler that held four little bales & they used to come out of the baler, the little toy elevator with the little handle that turned it & we used an uptipped shoe box as the barn. Oh & mower, early haybob type thing & trailer the tipping type but with yormers attached.

Yes in real life, we did not really have a decent flat trailer till 1976, always 3 ton tipper with extension & sloping gormers. Goodness Dad made life hard still only 65 acre then.

4course · Aug 4, 2020

Devil's advocate said:
Glad I started the thread, so many great comments.

Iconic machine really of the 60's, our Dad'd all had one.

I in my late teens & early 20's always ended up on the stack by my self. With some nutter sending the bales too fast & if I had a bust one or slipped down a gap in the stack would be buried in bales. Great machine if two on the stack & one on the trailer.

Did anyone have the toy one? My younger brother had the baler that held four little bales & they used to come out of the baler, the little toy elevator with the little handle that turned it & we used an uptipped shoe box as the barn. Oh & mower, early haybob type thing & trailer the tipping type but with yormers attached.

Yes in real life, we did not really have a decent flat trailer till 1976, always 3 ton tipper with extension & sloping gormers. Goodness Dad made life hard still only 65 acre then.

ive maybe got my rose tinted glasses on with the memories of what you describe but looking back the work was hard but the the living was a hell of a lot easier

Lister elevators

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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