Check wire

When they finished with the check wire, they laid it over the oat field.

The check wire, which created perfectly-aligned cross rows, required the operator get off the planter at each end of the field to move the check wire stakes and re-set the guide marker.

Walk the fence line periodically to check wire and insulators.

A very powerful AOI unit can check wire bonds, which may or may not be properly connected underneath the device packaging.

While some check-row planters were set up to plant on 42-inch centers, Mike says the check wire "buttons" on his vintage Hayes planter are designed to drop seed every 44 inches, with 40-inch spacing between the rows.

When the knot on the check wire comes through the fork on the side of the planter, it opens the bottom and the top is pivoted to close off this passage so no extra seed can fall through while the bottom is open.

The back third is a gem of a section covering soup to nuts: very interesting and rare free-standing shellers, box shellers, World War II-era scrap metal drives, check wire and rope, corn planters, leg-mounted stalk cutters, shock binders, husking pegs, seed corn dryers, fence post signs, sacks and other memorabilia.

Sam Moore had an excellent article in the February 2009 issue of Farm Collector on the need for splicing check wire. Bill James, Forest, Ohio, a member of the National Corn Item Collectors, has an assortment of check-wire splicing pliers and links.

A 1944 study revealed that approximately 50 percent of the time it took to plant a field with short, 20-rod rows was taken up in handling check wire and stakes.

Check wire ran along one side of the planter when planting in one direction, and on the other side on the return trip.