Rock guard for the cutter bar of a rotary disk header

A crop harvesting header comprising:

• a cutter bar mounted on a header frame across a width of the header for movement across the ground in a forward harvesting direction for harvesting the standing crop;
• the cutter bar including a longitudinally extending hollow gear case having a forwardmost edge of the gear case;
• a plurality of generally horizontal cutter disks mounted on the cutter bar at positions spaced along the cutter bar with the disks being mounted on the cutter bar for driven rotation about respective generally upright axes spaced along the cutter bar;
• each disk having mounted thereon at a position spaced outwardly from the respective axis thereof at least one cutter blade such that rotation of the disk about its axis causes a standing crop to be cut by the blade as it rotates around the axis on the disk;
• the gear case including a gear train arranged to drive the cutter disks;
• the cutter bar including a support beam extending along the gear case rearwardly of the gear case;
• and a plurality of guard plate members arranged side by side along the cutter bar and each attached to the beam and extending from the beam forwardly underneath the gear case to a forward position of the guard plate member which is located forwardly of the forwardmost edge of the gear case;
• wherein each guard plate member is supported by the beam so that it is cantilevered forwardly from the beam to the forward position of the guard plate member and the forward position of the guard plate member is connected to the gear case by fastener members connected between the guard plate member and the gear case to provide support for the gear case.

A crop harvesting header comprising:

• a cutter bar mounted on a header frame across a width of the header for movement across the ground in a forward harvesting direction for harvesting the standing crop;
• the cutter bar including a longitudinally extending hollow gear case;
• a plurality of generally horizontal cutter disks mounted on the cutter bar at positions spaced along the cutter bar with the disks being mounted on the cutter bar for driven rotation about respective generally upright axes spaced along the cutter bar;
• each disk having mounted thereon at a position spaced outwardly from the respective axis thereof at least one cutter blade such that rotation of the disk about its axis causes a standing crop to be cut by the blade as it rotates around the axis on the disk;
• the gear case including a gear train arranged to drive the cutter disks;
• the cutter bar including a support beam extending along the gear case rearwardly of the gear case;
• and a plurality of guard plate members arranged side by side along the cutter bar and each attached to the beam and extending from the beam forwardly underneath the gear case to a forward position in front of the gear case;
• wherein each adjacent pair of the guard plate members include butting side edges each to the next so as to provide a continuous guard fully covering the underside of the casing;
• each guard plate member underlies a respective one of the disks and includes a curved front edge generally following an arc surrounding the axis of the respective disk;
• wherein the curved front edges of each pair of guard plate members meet at a recessed front position of the front edges of the guard plate members between the disks;
• and a plurality of notch guard members separate from the guard plate members;
• wherein each separate notch guard member is located in front of the gear case between a respective pair of guard plate members and bridges the front edges of the pair of the guard plate members across the butting side edges between each guard plate member and the next.