Aluminum Allcrop?

I was looking in a guy's junk pile for some parts for my combine and he had a very poor Allcrop 60 that had most of the paint worn off. I was kind of shocked to see it was Aluminum. I have seen several dozon of these units and most were galvanized under the orange so is this one special? It would be pretty tough to restore, lots of stress cracks plus its been parted pretty well. Just curious, thanks.

Galvanized sheet metal, yes.....aluminum anything else, no.

Brother has seen another one that that had aluminum sheet metal. It was sold in a big line of junk to a scrap man at an auction. He didn't buy it because it was quite expensive to buy all the scrap with it. So brother thought he would come back in a couple days and buy it from the scrapper. I told him he needed to go right back that day and make the deal but he thought it would take weeks to cut up all the scrap. 2 or 3 days later I went with him to the farm site and nearly everything was gone. It was too bad. I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a shortage of steel at one point and AC went to aluminum for a short spell. I think they also made some B or C fenders made with either aluminum or something different too for a short period. Oliver did the same thing at the same time and built a few tractors with aluminum sheet metal. I've seen one of those Olivers at a show or auction years ago.

During the end of WWII galvanized sheet metal was in short supply. A-C was wanting to get stuff produced and out the door, for some reason they had a large supply of aluminum so they started using that on the All-Crops as well as other machines. Of course the aluminum did not hold up as well as the sheet metal did. I had heard farmers complain that they were always patching holes all over the machines. I have seen a couple that were in running condition and have seen a few and heard of a lot that had gone to scrap due to reliability issues.

I own one that the left half is mostly aluminum. I also own a outer divider for a mounted picker that is made up of aluminum as well although it is badly damaged it is still an interesting piece.

Jim

Jim is right!  After WWII we received combines and roto balers made of aluminum.   We were glad to get them since the demand for machines was really high at that time.  I cannot recall a problem with them.
You could easily tell you had aluminum if you took your nail and pushed against the paint.  If it came off it was aluminum.
Good Luck!
Bill Long

The funny thing about the aluminum pickup balers is the first balers in 47 were actually galvanized pickups but the 48s went to aluminum. I have heard they were trying to cut down weight but went back to the galvanized a few years later.

Jim

After the war, there was all kinds of aluminum available as surplus as the government canceled lots of airplane contracts.  Car makers didn't want aluminum as they weren't set up to stamp AL.  Scrap was pretty cheap back then as there was so much surplus war material on the market.  At least that is what I've been told. 

I had a 'C' that had one aluminum fender and one steel. A local collector here has it now.

There is a bin bagger combo that I think will be at Hutch this year. It has lots of aluminum

Yeah, and put an Aillison on it!

We have a aluminum 60 sitting in the yard

That's interesting. Seems at the vary least would be a good show piece

I have one that is almost all aluminum, even the bin, the back, top sides, almost everything but the concave.