Taking its name from the fact it features a tandem axle, brakes and steering, the Shelbourne Reynolds-made TABS is a new design of trailer for the widest combine cutterbars on the market. Available for both 10.5m (35ft) and 12m (40ft) cutterbars, it was created in response to the fact that tractors, rather than combines themselves, are now most commonly used to tow headers on the road (for manoeuvrability, weight and safety reasons).
The company reckons the trailer offers improved manoeuvrability and road handling by eliminating the usual front bogie on header trailers of this size. Instead, it is fitted with a leaf-sprung twin axle bogie, with both axles incorporating lockable hydraulic steering, which offer 45-degree turning. The trailer frame features a new ‘V’ locking bracket to help guide the header into place.
The trailer will be launched at LAMMA in January where a new and in-house-developed flail mower will also be unveiled. With a working width of 2.8m and transport width of 3.0m, the FBO 2800 is designed and manufactured at the firm’s Stanton, Suffolk, factory. Complementing the established range of hedge trimmers also built there, the FBO 2800 can be either paired with one of these machines in a front/rear combination or rear mounted on its own.
“We previously tested the water with a flail mower model imported from Italy, but our engineering designers have now created our own machine, built to match our largest hedge trimmer models,” says Neil Smith, sales and marketing director at Shelbourne Reynolds. “That means it can cope with the sort of high-power tractors often used with our HD800 hedge trimmers, and is sufficiently robust should it come into contact with tough material or a foreign object.”
The FBO 2800 features a double-skinned shell comprising two layers of 4mm-thick steel. From the pto shaft, drive is transferred through a 235hp-rate gearbox (depends on unit specified). Power then passes to the 220mm rotor via a series of five V-belts, rather than the more usual four. Large-diameter pulleys maximise the amount of belt wrap and minimise any possibility of belt slippage in tough conditions, says the company, and by swapping pulleys, the mower can be run using either 540 or 1000rpm pto shafts.
There is a choice of either 24 x 110mm-wide T-flails, or where finer mulching is required, 54 x 60mm-wide C-flails. Both types have a 10mm overlap, and the FBO 2800 also has 600mm hydraulic sideshift ability.
