This promotional film for Allis Chalmers’ new M100 Motor Grader likely dates to the early 1960s. The 167hp engine and high clearances offered by this machine were touted by AC in the film, which was called the “most productive motor grader in its class”. The company hoped that the M100 and its rollaway blade design would represent a new standard in the construction industry. Its design also offered high visibility and ground-hugging stability. Surprisingly, this version of the M-100 is shown without a protective cab, a safety consideration for this type of equipment.
Allis-Chalmers was a U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various industries. Its business lines included agricultural equipment, construction equipment, power generation and power transmission equipment, and machinery for use in industrial settings such as factories, flour mills, sawmills, textile mills, steel mills, refineries, mines, and ore mills. The first Allis-Chalmers Company was formed in 1901 as an amalgamation of the Edward P. Allis Company (steam engines and mill equipment), Fraser & Chalmers (mining and ore milling equipment), the Gates Iron Works (rock and cement milling equipment), and the industrial business line of the Dickson Manufacturing Company (engines and compressors). It was reorganized in 1912 as the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company. During the next 70 years its industrial machinery filled countless mills, mines, and factories around the world, and its brand gained fame among consumers mostly from its farm equipment business’s orange tractors and silver combine harvesters. In the 1980s and 1990s a series of divestitures transformed the firm and eventually dissolved it. Its successors today are Allis-Chalmers Energy and AGCO.
A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader or a motor grader, is a construction machine with a long blade used to create a flat surface during the grading process. Typical models have three axles, with the engine and cab situated above the rear axles at one end of the vehicle and a third axle at the front end of the vehicle, with the blade in between. In certain countries, for example in Finland, almost every grader is equipped with a second blade that is placed in front of the front axle. Some construction personnel refer to the entire machine as “the blade”. Capacities range from a blade width of 2.50 to 7.30 m and engines from 93–373 kW (125–500 hp). Certain graders can operate multiple attachments, or be used for separate tasks like underground mining.
In civil engineering, the grader’s purpose is to “finish grade” (to refine or set precisely). The “rough grading” is performed by heavy equipment or engineering vehicles such as scrapers and bulldozers.
Graders are commonly used in the construction and maintenance of dirt roads and gravel roads. In the construction of paved roads they are used to prepare the base course to create a wide flat surface upon which to place the asphalt. Graders are also used to set native soil foundation pads to finish grade prior to the construction of large buildings. Graders can produce inclined surfaces, to give cant (camber) to roads. In some countries they are used to produce drainage ditches with shallow V-shaped cross-sections on either side of highways.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
