Antique hay rakes

I can remember these being used in the 1950's to rake up wisps of hay the baler has missed; maybe an extra 1-2 bales per acre.

Horse shafts replaced with a single wooden pole & tractor hitch. Virtually all of them were cut up by the scrap metal men & wheels used as garden ornaments. The most valuable part were the cast iron seats with the makers name.

Interesting that they would do a second raking. I remember in the '50's in Texas when farmers would hire us young kids to go behind the corn picker to gather up corn that
was missed. Nothing was left on the ground. In a time of drought every little bit was important.

We used them to rake wind rows for loading loose hay. Those tines are a little different from those in the states. Ron Mn

Are there any 'wufflers' left?

I remember in the mid 1970s when we had to use one on the alfalfa because it was too short to pick up with the regular rake. I ran it while dad pulled it with the 770 Oliver. Had a couple of dry years then. One year we had 30 bales (2nd cutting) on 14 acres, and 20 bales on the 3rd cutting. Those were the only times dad had to buy hay. Milk cows got to eat.

Just wondering - how does that thing work? What does it do to the hay in the field?

Thanks - phil n

We called them "buck rake" and used them to stack hay where it was picked up by a front mount fork on a tractor which carried hay to a stationary baler then forked by hand into baler. I can still hear my brother yelling "BLOCK IT". I would like suggestions on what the tines can be used for. I own one that is missing wheels.

(quoted from post at 07:01:15 06/25/15) Are there any 'wufflers' left?

Click to expand...

The early ones were blue colour





The 1 row Wuffler was "the" hay tedder in the 50's & 60's. They disapeared when the European made multi rotor tedders came along which lifted & spread hay far better. A few have been preserved by collectors

Dad's rake like that is yard art now. That's the way Dad put up his oat hay. Front mounted fork on his F 12 would pick up a couple of shocks. Then take the shocks to the stationary baler to be forked in by hand. I also remember hearing the term Blocker. The plunger would push the blocker down to divide the bales. Then a person would poke the wire through the blocker as the bale was coming out, to the guy on the other side to tie the wire. Lots of memories. Stan

[i:654c4848f0]I would like suggestions on what the tines can be used for. I own one that is missing wheels.[/i:654c4848f0]

I can use all I can put my hands on for yard art. They make great plant hangers.

Try again on the picture

Something in the board software blows the picture up WAY past the original size.

Check the link
Original Picture

We used ours to <a href="https://youtu.be/lCuZWL9hbts">pick up loose hay</a> that was <a href="https://youtu.be/WQmn6KuQxTI">missed by the side delivery rake</a>.

Thanks Fawteen,that's a good looking fixture. Undouptedly more durable than those sold at big box places.

I still usually re-rake every hay field after the baler. In years of good weather, many times I will spread the hay with the tedder right after the moco to dry faster, then the next day, use the tedder to lift and move the spread hay kinda into rough windrows. If the drying is right, we'll bale right from there, with no use of the bar rake, if slow, I'll rake it over once. Raking after the baler is especially important out by the road (prideful image). With the terrible year this year, the grass is well past due for cutting and much of it has gone down with all the rain, making wedding/raking very tough. Went after the baler Tuesday night and gleaned three bales from three or so acres on the neighbor's place, another must image deal.

This is one that my grandad used. I found it in an old slough, it's been under water countless times but it really isn't that badly rusted.

This is what I have built with the teeth off of old dunp rakes. these two shop built chandeilers are in my house. It takes 10 teeth to form the circle and 5 lights and support chains to fab them up. I can mount the light fixtures to either down-lite or up-lite, to fit the decore of the room they are installed in. I built and sold 3 others for #300.oo each. wish I could find a few more of these old rakes in some hedgrows.
Loren, the Acg.

Don't recognize that model, but the one in Pair-A-Dice Farm's pic below is an IHC rake dump rake. The folks here in the Nebraska Sandhills who still stack hay rather
than bale it still use similar rakes, but they can be up to 46 foot long and hydraulically dumped. The older horsedrawn versions were mechanically dumped- a foot pedal
or lever was pressed(or pulled) and cogs in the wheel hubs would lift the teeth to dump the hay. It was and is an art to make straight windrows using these.

I pulled a 46 foot dump rake behind a super H farmall when I was 10 years old. I raked all our meadows after the bar-mowed hay had dried. Put it into windrows that
the sweeps would push to the stacker. Some outfits ran two similar rakes- a "straight rake" that did the initial raking, and a "scatter rake", that went behind and
picked up anything left over and put it in windrows. Other places, like ours, used the same rake for both purposes.

Initially, these were pulled by one or two horses, with the operator sitting on the seat. As tractors came into use, it was common around here to see an F-20 fitted
up with 3 twelve-foot rakes- one directly behind and two on either side on homebuilt "outriggers". That was normal until the late 50's when the custom-built larger
hydraulic rakes started to show up. A popular brand here in Nebraska was a "Valley" rake....36 foot wide, and the two outer sections would fold up hydraulically to go
through gates, etc.

We round bale now, but still keep a 36 foot dump rake around, and use it occasionally to pull hay out of low ground after rainstorms.

Phil- the teeth run along the ground just like your yard rake. They pick up loose hay that was cut by, usually, a sickle-bar mower. When they get full, you pull a lever
to dump the load, leaving a short windrow. You go back and forth across the field, dumping at the same place every time, creating long windrows that are then picked up by
other means, whether it's a baler, or however people put up up their hay.

Thanks. That's probably about the simplest piece of farm machinery I've ever heard of. (How can you tell I'm not a farmer?)