petes
Silver Member
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2009
- Messages
- 108
- Location
- Bellingham, Washington
- Tractor
- Kubota B8200 (21hp) , IH B275 (28hp), JD 1830 (68hp)
This was my 2nd year haying. Western Washington state, where it doesn稚 stop raining until July. Last year I did 480 bales with my little Kubota B7100 (!!), a New Holland 541 7ft sicklebar mower, Kuhn GRS21 (2 basket rake/tedder) and JD 14T. I rebuilt/repaired the mower and rake (made 1 good one out of 2 "parts" rakes), and had fun doing it all.
Over the winter I picked up a non-running 38hp International B275 and fixed it up (my "big" tractor), and also sold the 14T and bought a 24T for half as much $ and fixed it up. I now have about $3500 total into equipment, not including the Kubota.
Had everything ready to go in the spring and caught a break in the weather in late May to try it out on our little pasture. Made 35 bales without any problems, so decided to scale up this year and started talking to some neighbors with land around us.... the fun begins:
I had owners permission to bale 6 acres down the street, and another 3 acres he owned about 3 miles away, our school field about 10 miles away that I did last year, plus our 3 acres. Plenty for our 2 horses and some to sell. I flail mowed around the ditches and fences around the 6 acres, checking for obstacles and beating back the blackberries.... then started waiting for dry weather.
Someone else cut (silage?) the 3 acres while it was still wet a couple weeks ago. Kind of surprising, but OK with me, since it was a little far to road the equipment, and a lot of work to trailer/tow it for just a little patch.... no problem. Should still get plenty for us plus extra. 2 weeks ago my neighbors, who just inherited 20 acres across the road, said I could hay it for a couple hundred $. I started lining up a crew to help buck and get it in the barn and it was looking like everything was lined up perfectly. I had the whole week around July 4th off work, the rain stopped, forecast was great. I estimated we'd get about 2500 bales which would fill the barn. My kids (13 and 15) were excited to help once I told them they could sell it out of the barn over the winter to earn money towards their first cars. It would also pay us back for the equipment, and we'd use the rest of the profit for a family vacation. What could be better?
At work (day job) Friday mid-day my neighbor left a message that another neighbor was going to do the 20 acres across the road. DOH! Then Friday on my way home from work I had a look at the 6 acres down the road and decided to get started on it on Saturday. Sometime between 6:30pm Friday and 6am Saturday a hay pirate swooped in and "poached" the field right out from under me, despite what I thought was an agreement with the owner. Who knew this was such a cut-throat business?!? Plans of cars and vacation swirled down the drain, and I started worrying about just getting enough for our horses for the winter.
I talked to the other neighbor who was going to bale the 20 acre field across the road and he agreed to let me have it, but somewhere along the way the "rent" went up to $500... er, OK. We should be able to cover that it痴 only money Back on track and ready to go! Sunday I started mowing, planning to stagger about 5 acres a day, and finish baling on Saturday. HOT HOT weather (low 90's) dried the first bit faster than I壇 anticipated, so it was tedded, raked, and ready to bale by Tuesday evening. Someone was coming to buy 50 bales out of the field at 6pm, so started baling about 4:30.
Less than 10 bales into it, something went BANG. The chain driving the feeder forks snapped at 4:50pm. The only parts/supply place withing 30 minute drive closes at 5pm!. I called and told them I'd be there in 8 minutes. They agreed to wait for me. Great! Bought 10ft of chain and a few master links, thanked them profusely and hurried home to try to get going for the folks that were on their way. After counting links and installing the new chain, I was turning it over my hand checking the timing and heard an odd click click click that hadn't been there before. Further inspection found the sprockets for the main drive chain out of alignment and the clicking was the chain riding up on the teeth... the input shaft into to the main gearbox had "grown" about 1/2" in length... what the heck? I figured a nut must have come loose in the bevel gearbox behind the flywheel, but it didn't look like that end of the shaft had moved, only the other end.. The folks showed up for their hay, and we told them they could take the 35 bales we had in the barn from May instead while I started taking things apart. To my dismay, I found the input shaft had snapped under a collar just outside the gearbox! It was now 6:30 and everything would be closed, so no hope of ordering parts until the next day... a web inventory search showed shaft wasn't in stock anywhere nearby, and it壇 cost $540! This was starting to seem a little less fun.... The folks buying the hay finished loading and came over to see how things were going. I showed them the shaft and said I知 pretty much hooped unless I could find a machine shop to weld it. Their son-in-law said çš„ could get that fixed for you, or make you a new oneè³* he worked at a refinery and had access to everything necessary, plus the know-how. He started work at 3:30am and said if I could have it out and on the porch by 3am he壇 pick it up. Whoo hoo! I went out and mowed another 5ac until 10pm, came home and set up work lights and pulled the gearbox apart, pressed the bearings off the shaft and had it on the porch by midnight. He called and texted a couple of times through the day to confirm a few things, and had the metallurgy tested, annealed, ground out, welded, straightened, re-heat treated, even painted John Deere yellow and back to me by 5pm!
I put it all back together, re-timed and headed for the field to start baling by 7pm. First bale tied fine, then both sides missed, and after re-stringing the knotters a couple times found a broken spring on the tucker fingers. Fortunately I had one in my 澱ox of old springs that I could cut down and make it work. I punched out 150 bales, and got them loaded them on the trailer just as it got dark at 10. The next 1200 bales went pretty smoothly with only minor mechanical hiccups, about a dozen ball-ups on the rake and running into some ponds and ditches (but no fences!). I壇 had trouble keeping ahead of the falling grass with the sickle bar mower, as some of it was leaning. I was running wide open in first gear high range which was a little too slow, but second gear ground speed was too fast for the cutting action, both causing cutter clog-ups and leaving tall grass pushed over. The 斗ive grass is mostly what caused the ball-ups on the rake, baler and broke the chain on the baler pickup. One time some wrapped on the PTO shaft on the rake and jacked the release on the rake end, causing the PTO shaft to drop, which instantly made a giant Q-Tip. Due to delays and wet areas I left about 6 acres standing since I had to go back to work, then off to help at our church highschool youth camp through the next weekend.
Stats:
1400 bales at about 4 per minute. Only one missed tie (once I got the knotters working). One flywheel shear bolt in the first 1350 bales, and 3 more to finish the last 50 bales around the edges of the field. 2 broken chains (master links both times), the broken input shaft (the crack had been progressing for a long time), and about 20 gallons of diesel burned in the tractor.
Things I致e learned:
The grass in the wet areas was 6-8ft tall, so I mowed quite a bit standing up. I learned that while driving downhill and itç—´ getting wetter (getting into standing water) it often looks like youæ±*e just about to start climbing to higher ground but itç—´ just the grass getting taller! Give up early and back out.
Good mowing makes everything else go WAY easier. Sloppy mowing causes hours of delays and bent/broken equipment in subsequent processes. My mower has adjustable drive pulley sheaves, and once I changed the pulley ratio to speed up the cutter bar, I could throttle back and (burn less fuel) and mow in high 2nd and it mowed cleanly and faster travel speed (5-6 mph) Unfortunately I didn稚 figure this out until the last 5 acres.
The guide fingers supports for the rotary rake were dragging on the ground. Once grass wrapped around the front of them and started dragging along more grass quickly joined it, blocking the ç™»utput? which quickly backed up into the whirling baskets and balled up. I welded some pads on the bottom of the support arms to lift them off the ground 2 inches and the ball-upç—´ nearly stopped happeningl.
Edges of pastures and corners are tough. The rotary rake throws into the tall grass on corners. Pull it out by hand or leave it.
Good help is invaluable. Feed them well. My crew (co-workers at my day job, plus a 3 others that have horses and were working for hay) was fantastic. One guy had bucked hay for 7 years as a youth, the other 2 co-workers were virgin buckers, but were incredibly strong (weightlifters). It was pretty funny to observe the difference between experience and strength, and how much energy the strong guys burned by not moving efficiently. A couple skinny 40-50 year olds ran them both into the ground! My wife and kids made big dinners both days and everyone had fun, and will hopefully be back next year!
Having tools, creativity and spare parts is invaluable. I used my lathe 8-10 times and my welder about a dozen to repair or fabricate parts. Much of this was due to using old/worn equipment, which is now all in better condition than when I started. Having the tools to repair or make parts saved much time and $. I can稚 imagine having to haul equipment 45 minutes one way to leave at a dealer for a week or more for repairs, or drive 1-1/2 hours round trip to buy every part I needed.
Don稚 leave maintenance or projects undone until the last minute! Although I thought I had things in pretty good shape ahead of time, I should have changed the oil in the tractor, replaced the broken/bent tines on the rake and baler and several other �inor maintenance things long before it was time to start using them. These took up time that could have been spent doing other things (or resting!).
æ“¢arming from 5:30am to 10:30pm (or later) for 7 days straight makes for a groggy Engineering Manager when they return to work on Monday!
I知 already watching the grass re-grow and thinking about how great it壇 be to get a second cutting!
Over the winter I picked up a non-running 38hp International B275 and fixed it up (my "big" tractor), and also sold the 14T and bought a 24T for half as much $ and fixed it up. I now have about $3500 total into equipment, not including the Kubota.
Had everything ready to go in the spring and caught a break in the weather in late May to try it out on our little pasture. Made 35 bales without any problems, so decided to scale up this year and started talking to some neighbors with land around us.... the fun begins:
I had owners permission to bale 6 acres down the street, and another 3 acres he owned about 3 miles away, our school field about 10 miles away that I did last year, plus our 3 acres. Plenty for our 2 horses and some to sell. I flail mowed around the ditches and fences around the 6 acres, checking for obstacles and beating back the blackberries.... then started waiting for dry weather.
Someone else cut (silage?) the 3 acres while it was still wet a couple weeks ago. Kind of surprising, but OK with me, since it was a little far to road the equipment, and a lot of work to trailer/tow it for just a little patch.... no problem. Should still get plenty for us plus extra. 2 weeks ago my neighbors, who just inherited 20 acres across the road, said I could hay it for a couple hundred $. I started lining up a crew to help buck and get it in the barn and it was looking like everything was lined up perfectly. I had the whole week around July 4th off work, the rain stopped, forecast was great. I estimated we'd get about 2500 bales which would fill the barn. My kids (13 and 15) were excited to help once I told them they could sell it out of the barn over the winter to earn money towards their first cars. It would also pay us back for the equipment, and we'd use the rest of the profit for a family vacation. What could be better?
At work (day job) Friday mid-day my neighbor left a message that another neighbor was going to do the 20 acres across the road. DOH! Then Friday on my way home from work I had a look at the 6 acres down the road and decided to get started on it on Saturday. Sometime between 6:30pm Friday and 6am Saturday a hay pirate swooped in and "poached" the field right out from under me, despite what I thought was an agreement with the owner. Who knew this was such a cut-throat business?!? Plans of cars and vacation swirled down the drain, and I started worrying about just getting enough for our horses for the winter.
I talked to the other neighbor who was going to bale the 20 acre field across the road and he agreed to let me have it, but somewhere along the way the "rent" went up to $500... er, OK. We should be able to cover that it痴 only money Back on track and ready to go! Sunday I started mowing, planning to stagger about 5 acres a day, and finish baling on Saturday. HOT HOT weather (low 90's) dried the first bit faster than I壇 anticipated, so it was tedded, raked, and ready to bale by Tuesday evening. Someone was coming to buy 50 bales out of the field at 6pm, so started baling about 4:30.
Less than 10 bales into it, something went BANG. The chain driving the feeder forks snapped at 4:50pm. The only parts/supply place withing 30 minute drive closes at 5pm!. I called and told them I'd be there in 8 minutes. They agreed to wait for me. Great! Bought 10ft of chain and a few master links, thanked them profusely and hurried home to try to get going for the folks that were on their way. After counting links and installing the new chain, I was turning it over my hand checking the timing and heard an odd click click click that hadn't been there before. Further inspection found the sprockets for the main drive chain out of alignment and the clicking was the chain riding up on the teeth... the input shaft into to the main gearbox had "grown" about 1/2" in length... what the heck? I figured a nut must have come loose in the bevel gearbox behind the flywheel, but it didn't look like that end of the shaft had moved, only the other end.. The folks showed up for their hay, and we told them they could take the 35 bales we had in the barn from May instead while I started taking things apart. To my dismay, I found the input shaft had snapped under a collar just outside the gearbox! It was now 6:30 and everything would be closed, so no hope of ordering parts until the next day... a web inventory search showed shaft wasn't in stock anywhere nearby, and it壇 cost $540! This was starting to seem a little less fun.... The folks buying the hay finished loading and came over to see how things were going. I showed them the shaft and said I知 pretty much hooped unless I could find a machine shop to weld it. Their son-in-law said çš„ could get that fixed for you, or make you a new oneè³* he worked at a refinery and had access to everything necessary, plus the know-how. He started work at 3:30am and said if I could have it out and on the porch by 3am he壇 pick it up. Whoo hoo! I went out and mowed another 5ac until 10pm, came home and set up work lights and pulled the gearbox apart, pressed the bearings off the shaft and had it on the porch by midnight. He called and texted a couple of times through the day to confirm a few things, and had the metallurgy tested, annealed, ground out, welded, straightened, re-heat treated, even painted John Deere yellow and back to me by 5pm!
I put it all back together, re-timed and headed for the field to start baling by 7pm. First bale tied fine, then both sides missed, and after re-stringing the knotters a couple times found a broken spring on the tucker fingers. Fortunately I had one in my 澱ox of old springs that I could cut down and make it work. I punched out 150 bales, and got them loaded them on the trailer just as it got dark at 10. The next 1200 bales went pretty smoothly with only minor mechanical hiccups, about a dozen ball-ups on the rake and running into some ponds and ditches (but no fences!). I壇 had trouble keeping ahead of the falling grass with the sickle bar mower, as some of it was leaning. I was running wide open in first gear high range which was a little too slow, but second gear ground speed was too fast for the cutting action, both causing cutter clog-ups and leaving tall grass pushed over. The 斗ive grass is mostly what caused the ball-ups on the rake, baler and broke the chain on the baler pickup. One time some wrapped on the PTO shaft on the rake and jacked the release on the rake end, causing the PTO shaft to drop, which instantly made a giant Q-Tip. Due to delays and wet areas I left about 6 acres standing since I had to go back to work, then off to help at our church highschool youth camp through the next weekend.
Stats:
1400 bales at about 4 per minute. Only one missed tie (once I got the knotters working). One flywheel shear bolt in the first 1350 bales, and 3 more to finish the last 50 bales around the edges of the field. 2 broken chains (master links both times), the broken input shaft (the crack had been progressing for a long time), and about 20 gallons of diesel burned in the tractor.
Things I致e learned:
The grass in the wet areas was 6-8ft tall, so I mowed quite a bit standing up. I learned that while driving downhill and itç—´ getting wetter (getting into standing water) it often looks like youæ±*e just about to start climbing to higher ground but itç—´ just the grass getting taller! Give up early and back out.
Good mowing makes everything else go WAY easier. Sloppy mowing causes hours of delays and bent/broken equipment in subsequent processes. My mower has adjustable drive pulley sheaves, and once I changed the pulley ratio to speed up the cutter bar, I could throttle back and (burn less fuel) and mow in high 2nd and it mowed cleanly and faster travel speed (5-6 mph) Unfortunately I didn稚 figure this out until the last 5 acres.
The guide fingers supports for the rotary rake were dragging on the ground. Once grass wrapped around the front of them and started dragging along more grass quickly joined it, blocking the ç™»utput? which quickly backed up into the whirling baskets and balled up. I welded some pads on the bottom of the support arms to lift them off the ground 2 inches and the ball-upç—´ nearly stopped happeningl.
Edges of pastures and corners are tough. The rotary rake throws into the tall grass on corners. Pull it out by hand or leave it.
Good help is invaluable. Feed them well. My crew (co-workers at my day job, plus a 3 others that have horses and were working for hay) was fantastic. One guy had bucked hay for 7 years as a youth, the other 2 co-workers were virgin buckers, but were incredibly strong (weightlifters). It was pretty funny to observe the difference between experience and strength, and how much energy the strong guys burned by not moving efficiently. A couple skinny 40-50 year olds ran them both into the ground! My wife and kids made big dinners both days and everyone had fun, and will hopefully be back next year!
Having tools, creativity and spare parts is invaluable. I used my lathe 8-10 times and my welder about a dozen to repair or fabricate parts. Much of this was due to using old/worn equipment, which is now all in better condition than when I started. Having the tools to repair or make parts saved much time and $. I can稚 imagine having to haul equipment 45 minutes one way to leave at a dealer for a week or more for repairs, or drive 1-1/2 hours round trip to buy every part I needed.
Don稚 leave maintenance or projects undone until the last minute! Although I thought I had things in pretty good shape ahead of time, I should have changed the oil in the tractor, replaced the broken/bent tines on the rake and baler and several other �inor maintenance things long before it was time to start using them. These took up time that could have been spent doing other things (or resting!).
æ“¢arming from 5:30am to 10:30pm (or later) for 7 days straight makes for a groggy Engineering Manager when they return to work on Monday!
I知 already watching the grass re-grow and thinking about how great it壇 be to get a second cutting!
