Abstract: A method and instrument for positioning a proximal segment of a buccal cortex to seat a condyle in the fossa during TMJ corrective procedures includes osteotomizing a mandible, thereby forming a proximal segment and a distal segment, drilling a burr hole in the proximal segment adjacent the osteotomy and inserting, into the hole, the tip of a positioning instrument having a handle, an elongated shaft and a stepped down tip angled approximately 45.degree. relative to the axis of the handle and shaft. The instrument can be manipulated from the patient's mouth in a minimally invasive and secure fashion.

Abstract: An osteotomy blade saw is provided in left-offset and right-offset embodiments for performing sagittal ramus osteotomies. The blade saw has first and second straight arm portions forming an obtuse angle between them, the end of the second arm terminating in a neck portion which angles acutely away from the plane containing the arms and terminates in an end portion on which a cutting blade is mounted. The blade lies in a plane parallel to the plane containing the arms and is offset to the right and left depending on the embodiment. Supplying reciprocating linear motion to the first arm allows the saw to be used in cutting bone. The blade saw in its two preferred embodiments can be used to score and cut the underside of the right and left inferior borders of the mandible, respectively, through incisions inside the mouth.

Abstract: A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse disk type cutter bar. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A transversely extending concave conditioning plate conforms closely to the forward upper quadrant of the rotor. A hood covers the rotor and conditioning plate and includes a forward portion which serves in part as safety shielding and a rearwardly extending crop deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it inside the hood up and over the rotor through the confined space or conditioning zone between the rotor flails and the conditioning plate and discharge it rearwardly. In its passage through the conditioning zone, the crop material is bruised or conditioned in such a way that its rate of drying in the window is accelerated.

Abstract: A pull-type mobile harvesting machine includes a header supported on a main frame and an arch-like tongue swingably connected to the main frame and extending forward over the header for pivoting connection to a tractor. A double-acting hydraulic steering cylinder controlled from the tractor is connected between the frame and tongue for swinging the tongue relative to the frame while the machine is advancing so that the machine is displaced laterally selectively between a range of operating positions, offset relative to the tractor, and transport positions, generally immediately behind the tractor.

Abstract: A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter assembly comprising a series of side-by-side rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free-swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter assembly. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter assembly and carry it inside the hood up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow.

Abstract: A tractor drawn and powered impeller mower-conditioner includes a transverse cutter bar comprising a series of pairs of side-by-side contra-rotating cutting disks. An impeller rotor with free swinging flails is mounted above and slightly to the rear of the cutter bar with its axis of rotation parallel to the cutter bar. A hood over the rotor includes a confining forward conditioning plate conforming fairly closely to the rotor periphery to form a conditioning zone and a rearwardly extending deflecting and windrow forming portion. The rotor is disposed and rotated so that the flails intercept cut material delivered rearwardly by the cutter bar and carry it, inside the hood, up and over the rotor through the conditioning zone to be discharged rearwardly into a windrow. The flow of cut material from each pair of disks tends to be concentrated into a rearwardly directed stream by the bite or convergence of the contra-rotating disks.