Baler Drag Race Accident

[oldtech]

This is what happens when you bale with a 150 HP tractor at high rev and dont pay attention.

I didnt see this but I heard it.  He was really screaming along with the plunger hitting at a fast rate and then I heard the crunch.

Pin on the reach must have fallen out and the rear end pole vaulted over it.  Wrecked the gear and at least one of the rack beams.

I think he was rusing to beat the rain.

 

[Big Bud guy]

Are those actual bales?  Looks like loose hay 

[Matt Kirsch]

Definitely a lot of loose ones in there for sure. A product of trying to rush things no doubt.

Yeah, I know your baler will run at any RPM and never miss. Not my experience. The NH 316 was the best but even that got squirrelly at PTO speed. Even the IH balers worked (marginally) better at lower RPMs. Couple of years ago they were baling the 1st cutting off our pasture for their horses. They left one of the (20-something) kids there with no instruction, just "bale." I happened along on the 4 wheeler to see him running their 886 at 2600RPM and that Deere 336 baler tossing wads of loose hay everywhere. I had him slow down to 1500 and all of a sudden the thing started pounding out perfect bales one after the other.

[Jacka]

Haste makes waste

[Big Bud guy]

34 minutes ago, Matt Kirsch said:

I happened along on the 4 wheeler to see him running their 886 at 2600RPM and that Deere 336 baler tossing wads of loose hay everywhere. I had him slow down to 1500 and all of a sudden the thing started pounding out perfect bales one after the other.

I’ve always baled at the correct PTO speed with our balers with no issues but if the Neb tests are correct for the 886, 540 rpms on the PTO is ~2,100 rpms on the engine.  It’s a wonder the baler didn’t fly apart. 

[oldtech]

There is the issue of broken bales, yes.  These guys always seem to have a lot of them.  Yes they were rushing and it was damp out so the grass was tough.  Smacking it harder doesnt help.  You need to give the knotters time to get the twine in the right place.  I did so much baling back in the day I still have the plunger noise timed in my ear.  Maybe 30 or 40 per minute?  Then consider that this was not cut all summer til now.  Its canary grass but still it was in huge windrows and really woody.  You can tell it wasnt cutting the gras well either by seeing how long it still it.  It was just folding it around on the ends.

A little loose hay one thing.  A nearly new throw rack torn up like that is something else.  A smaller tractor would have given the driver a little snort to him him that something was up.  A big rig like that would have no mercy on it especially at high RPMs.  Being in a cab maybe with a radio blasting and the AC on doesnt help either cause you cant hear the metal twisting or timbers cracking.  That one beam is snapped off like a twig!  

I used to use my 966 hydro with a 45 baler and thrower.  If I tried to push it like that Id just start shearing pins.  If I saw raggy bales I knew it was too damp.  The thorwer would start having trouble cause the bales werent clearnly cut and had to rip them free from the next one just like you see here.  And then strings would break.  Sometimes you have to know when to quit.

Previously a customer operator my old tenant hired to make big bales used to wait way to long to cut too often not cutting alfalfa mixed hat until well into July.  Then he would rake it up into huge windrows and use a 1066 on a Deer big bailer which would make that tractor snort.  The last summer he worked here he actual broke TWO plungers in two different balers trying to make them eat all that.  Every time that plunger went in that 1066 was blow black smoke and snort.

[766 Man]

  The safety factor that existed with older equipment is gone.  The NH 270 baler dad had would shear pins readily in those kind of conditions.  The thrower racks were on JD 963 wagons which would be airborne and all over the field.  If pins did not shear then the PTO U joints would experience failure.  The baler was well made but not meant for extreme conditions.  And we baled reed canary grass smooth as butter.  

[stronger800]

modern N.H. balers will eat hay faster than most of you guys would think. Older bigger ones would too, like a 282 or 320, but the 320 had the hi-speed feeder that wasn’t super robust.  A 40-50lb bale ever 6 sec is comfortable.   4-5 is pushing.  7-8 is slow. 
1066, 38’s, 4lo TA ahead. Pto speed. 

[Big Bud guy]

25 minutes ago, stronger800 said:

modern N.H. balers will eat hay faster than most of you guys would think. Older bigger ones would too, like a 282 or 320, but the 320 had the hi-speed feeder that wasn’t super robust.  A 40-50lb bale ever 6 sec is comfortable.   4-5 is pushing.  7-8 is slow. 
1066, 38’s, 4lo TA ahead. Pto speed. 

You have skinny guys riding the wagons?  40-50 is too light for me and that was the reason dad didn’t care for our 24T.  Couldn’t make bales heavy enough.  I try 70+ lbs

[766 Man]

22 minutes ago, Big Bud guy said:

You have skinny guys riding the wagons?  40-50 is too light for me and that was the reason dad didn’t care for our 24T.  Couldn’t make bales heavy enough.  I try 70-80 lbs 

  40 lbs would be on the light side for an alfalfa or alfalfa-grass bale but certainly not unheard of here.  Some days with the high humidity it was wise not to make an extremely dense bale especially if hay moisture was marginal (15 percent or higher).  

[Big Bud guy]

21 minutes ago, 766 Man said:

  40 lbs would be on the light side for an alfalfa or alfalfa-grass bale but certainly not unheard of here.  Some days with the high humidity it was wise not to make an extremely dense bale especially if hay moisture was marginal (15 percent or higher).  

With our low humidity sometimes we have trouble getting enough moisture/dew to bale hay once it’s cut and dried down.  It’s not unheard of to go out 3:00 in the middle of night to bale before the sun comes up.  Only guys I know that make 40 lbs bales are the ones with wives with horses 

[stronger800]

Which is who I want to sell to.  If you sold a 70lb bale in the east, you’d get paid for 45. I actually have guys asking me to make them “look” bigger, but be lighter.  If I could make a  (solid) longer bale that weighed 35lbs, I would. 

[Gearclash]

Sounds like mainly a rough field/neglected equipment problem.

 

Some of you folks would get dizzy and fall over if you rode along with me round baling. 

[766 Man]

18 minutes ago, stronger800 said:

Which is who I want to sell to.  If you sold a 70lb bale in the east, you’d get paid for 45. I actually have guys asking me to make them “look” bigger, but be lighter.  If I could make a  (solid) longer bale that weighed 35lbs, I would. 

  As you say that is the market here.  A fellow I knew near Rochester said the same thing and most of his customers were horse owners.  They also felt there was less potential problems with dusty hay if the bales could "breath."  I assume your bales typically are 14 X 18 X 36-40 inches.  Truckers usually did not want them shorter in part for load stability meaning the longer bales "tie in" with one another.  

[Big Bud guy]

14 minutes ago, stronger800 said:

Which is who I want to sell to.  If you sold a 70lb bale in the east, you’d get paid for 45. I actually have guys asking me to make them “look” bigger, but be lighter.  If I could make a  (solid) longer bale that weighed 35lbs, I would. 

I wasn’t going to say it out loud but bragging about punching out a bale every 6 seconds but only weighs 40 lbs is not that  impressive 

[Lazy WP]

2 minutes ago, Big Bud guy said:

I wasn’t going to say it out loud but bragging about punching out a bale every 6 seconds but only weighs 40 lbs is not that  impressive 

70 pound bales won’t sell around here, unless they are loaded on a truck and shipped out of the country. There’s a few guys who made a very good living stuffing 50 pound bales into a cattle trailer and shipping them back to Tennessee. 

[stronger800]

 I was just saying that’s what a modern baler  will do. You can travel fast enough to make a bale in 4-6 seconds, at pto speed, without over working anything, and  that speed relates to this topic, where guys assumed the wagon was traveling fast in the above accident.

My balers will also do a 70+ pound bale in the same amount of time, but I am not interested in doing that.  Lots of members on this forum are remembering the old NH 273 style Baler  that their grandfathers had in the 70s, and lots of guys still use them and they definitely work. But they don’t cover the ground modern equipment can. Just like I know that I cannot cover the ground that a big square, Baler  can. But that  is the different market.

how does a “oh my, my bales are 70+ pounds” relate to this topic exactly?

Sounds like bragging to me 

[39farmalla]

2 hours ago, stronger800 said:

If you sold a 70lb bale in the east, you’d get paid for 45.

Same here and no one wants 70lb bales

[iowaboy1965]

Hay moisture and type make a big difference. Still run a pretty worn 24t and it will make some pretty heavy tight bales depending on condition and type of hay.  Always run it at pto speed as did dad when I was growing up with the 66 or maybe it was a 68 new holland?

[806Jordy]

So the good news photo's are back...

 

[TroyDairy]

4 hours ago, Big Bud guy said:

With our low humidity sometimes we have trouble getting enough moisture/dew to bale hay once it’s cut and dried down.  It’s not unheard of to go out 3:00 in the middle of night to bale before the sun comes up.  Only guys I know that make 40 lbs bales are the ones with wives with horses 

Inland WA a alf is 90 or nothing.  But they have not hand bucked a bale since the early 70s.  

[oldtech]

3 hours ago, Gearclash said:

Sounds like mainly a rough field/neglected equipment problem.

 

Some of you folks would get dizzy and fall over if you rode along with me round baling. 

Rough ground yes.  Its all low land muck along a creek and often gets cut up by previous operators coming in with big equipment in less than ideal conditions so there are plenty of ruts down there.  

As for equipment this is the tenant Ive complained about who hires all his work done.  It looks like he may have figured out he has to do more of his own work with his own equipment to cut costs now.  But he also lacks experience.  It looks to me like he tried to lengthen that gear a bit too much and had some kind of extension on the back so he could pull another wagon behind.  Trying to save money and trips I guess.  He's a weekend warrior too so if he cant get it done on the week end he may not get it done for a long time.  Just trying to cut corners and save time.  I get that but it gets risky.

I sympathize because while my dad had farm experience in Europe it was mostly with horses and did a lot of similar stupid things.  It was an early education to me on how not to do things with modern equipment.  These folks did not have a farm before this either so I can relate even if it upsets me now.  Hope nobody gets hurt.

[Mark (EC,IN)]

28 minutes ago, 806Jordy said:

So the good news photo's are back...

 

I tried to post one earlier today, and I could not.

[oldtech]

3 minutes ago, TroyDairy said:

Inland WA a alf is 90 or nothing.  But they have not hand bucked a bale since the early 70s.  

I once bought a couple of semis of densely packed 2nd crop alfalfa that I swear were over 100 but were tied with WIRE!  I forget where it came from.   Nice feed tho.

[oldtech]

2 minutes ago, Mark (EC,IN) said:

I tried to post one earlier today, and I could not.

The ones I posted here were copy/paste because uploads werent working.  I thought it was something with my pics.