It is also the way that I have to do it, but there is a better way: Let me tell you about my neighbor Harv.

He used to run a Gleaner L and because he was often impatient, plugging the cylinder wasn't a rare occasion. On a Gleaner conventional, the first concave is attached to a stone door and serves as a trap door for any rocks you might ingest. The trap door is also the method of choice for unslugging cylinders. You raise the header, engage the header safety lock, crawl under the door and trip the latch mechanism, to open the door and give you access to the wadded mass that's stopping things up. Of course, gravity being gravity, when you trip the door, all kinds of itchy stuff falls on the door tripper - not that it really matters because you'll get plenty of stuff on you as you're digging anyways. So now, back to Ol' Harv and his method. Harv had been plagued with a series of heart attacks and according to him, he was under the doc's orders to take it easy. Harv was also blessed with a faithful wife who was kind enough to help with harvest by driving the grain trucks and operating the bin augers so Harv could keep combining. Because Harv deemed it to be hard work to dig out slugs, his good wife would crawl under the header after Harv had engaged the safety stop and de-slug the beast as part of her duties. This system worked well for many years and all us guys were amazed at the good fortune of someone that could have it so good as to have an auto de-slugger on your machine.

Harv's system came to a very unhappy end one day though. The faithful wife and harvest hand managed to nick the sickle drive end of the header with the front truck tire. According to her, it wasn't a bad nick, but Harv being kind of spoiled and known to pitch a fit when things went against him, actually had the audacity to scream at his good wife. She took it the wrong way, got out of the truck, and walked home. Never again, did she un-slug or drive truck, or run the bin augers.

Moral of the story: Never, never scream at the truck driver / un-slugger. Especially if you're sleeping with her.