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Banana Bales-Hay Press

P

Patatrcc

Member
Didn't know which Forum to post this, but I built me a 1/3 scale baler this spring and then finally got the chance to test it out yesterday and do some minor adjustments on it. Seems to work well, except that I'm getting more hay in the bottom of the bale than at the top and they banana a little. I don't know how to overcome gravity! I shortened my plunger twice yesterday as I thought it was pushing the grass too far down into the chamber. It helped it some, but it's still doing it. I tried putting hay in it sideways, lengthways, loose (every which direction) and it doesn't seem to help much. I know on a regular baler, you can adjust the feeder forks to position the hay in the chamber so it's more centered, but when you're doing it manually with a hay press like this, you don't have that adjustment. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? Also-just to clarify, I am testing this out by just feeding it from the top and not using the bale pick up and auger yet. They work, but for now I'm just testing it out as a stationary press until I get the bugs worked out and then I'm going to paint it. Thanks,
Pat in Montana
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My guess, you may need to fill chamber full to the top. might try increasing pressure on rails above and below bale for denser packing. My full sized baler wants to make bales banana sideways. Solution for me is to keep good windrow flowing into intake chamber. What are you using for knotters? They would be a nightmare to build scaled down even in a very well equipped machine shop. If you get it fully functional, you will have a very expensive toy! Worth a large amount due to much labor, not to mention all the hand made parts. Looks very nice so far. Keep us posted.
 
Hi patatrcc, that is a nice looking baler you made I'm sure you'll get the bugs worked out lok forward to seeing more postings of your progress and using the pickup etc. Great fab work
GB in MN
 
Went out and tried it again this morning and that helps keeping the chamber full. It's just a full time job grabbing hay, wadding it up a bit, and getting it in place before the plunger comes down. It's at an idle and I'm getting 20 strokes/min. You're lucky if you can get a handful of hay in it every other stroke. I didn't put a belt tensioner on it until just now as I was wanting them to slip in case it binded up, but after running it several hours, it seems to work smoothly and I just built a tensioner. I think it needed to break in a little and seat itself. Now, I think I can add more hay at a time keeping the chamber full. Before, if you overloaded it, when the piston went to compress the hay, it would stop until you helped it through the tight spot by hand. Now I think it'll have enough energy to cycle on through that.

Knotters? Still doing it manually. Building a set of auto knotters is way above my pay grade~ha, ha. Those are a mystery in itself. There is no way this will ever work like a full scale baler (being automatic), but it will pick up hay and feed it into the chamber with the pick-up and the auger, you just would have to have someone on a little chair riding around in back tying bales non-stop. Or just bale it up and have it spit out the back minus the twine. This is more of a toy, but I would like to get the banana issue figured out as this is annoying. Just wanted to see if I could build one and so far-so good.
Pat
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Thank you. It's been a fun project. Worked on it about 3-4 weeks in February and then got about as much done as I could because the next step was putting some grass through it and that wasn't going to be available until May-June so it just has been sitting in the shop. Sunday night I tried putting yard clipping in it and those bales turned out nice, but it takes a 30 gallon trash bag of grass to make just over two bales (5" x 7" x 12") so yesterday and today I am putting some grass I cut with the John Deere A and the sickle bar through it. It is about 24" tall, so it's holding together better, it just has to be wadded up a bit to fit in the small hole in the chamber, but I'm getting the hang of it. Have 18 bales made so far.
Pat in Montana.
 
That's a nice project! The flywheel on a small square baler
helps offset the changing energy need of the plunger. You
may need to add one on the baler. I don't know if the one
you put on the engine is big enough.
 
. Did you ever hear of Bailer Sam in Lancaster County Pa. ? He makes balers that size and I would bet you could buy a knottier and needle assy. from him. Sam makes and sells a lot of those little balers. any one interested I can get you his name and address.
 

I'm with the other guys. You need to get that chamber closer to full. Larger windrow or drive faster, LOL.
 
(quoted from post at 11:53:05 06/27/17) Grass to dry. ? My NH 269 will bale a banana bale if the hay is too dry.
Click to expand...

Dryer hay tends to have more of a "spring" effect. Check your hay dogs for free movement, and make larger windrows.
 
(quoted from post at 15:33:33 06/27/17)
(quoted from post at 11:53:05 06/27/17) Grass to dry. ? My NH 269 will bale a banana bale if the hay is too dry.
Click to expand...

Dryer hay tends to have more of a "spring" effect. Check your hay dogs for free movement, and make larger windrows.
Click to expand...
I noticed that, too, today as it got drier. It was getting so spongy that I couldn't get a divider into the chamber. Took it back in the shop, added 3/4" to the face of the plunger (piston) so that it would force the grass farther into the baler on each stroke, went out and tried it again and now it's making good bales. Made close to a dozen and they all look good. With it shoving hay farther inside on each cycle, I'm getting a chance to shove more hay in by hand and keeping the chamber full. Now the banana part is gone.
 
(quoted from post at 15:33:33 06/27/17)
(quoted from post at 11:53:05 06/27/17) Grass to dry. ? My NH 269 will bale a banana bale if the hay is too dry.
Click to expand...

Dryer hay tends to have more of a "spring" effect. Check your hay dogs for free movement, and make larger windrows.
Click to expand...
I noticed that, too, today as it got drier. It was getting so spongy that I couldn't get a divider into the chamber. Took it back in the shop, added 3/4" to the face of the plunger (piston) so that it would force the grass farther into the baler on each stroke, went out and tried it again and now it's making good bales. Made close to a dozen and they all look good. With it shoving hay farther inside on each cycle, I'm getting a chance to shove more hay in by hand and keeping the chamber full. Now the banana part is gone.
 

No, I've never heard of him, but would be interested in some more info. A knotter on that would make a really neat baler and no more hand tying. If you can email me on that, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

Pat
 
With the pickup on the left you know you have to paint it Allis orange :)

Great project! It is hard to scale down stuff, so I was going to ask about the size of your hay dogs. I think you're right that it's working better as you slick up the inside with hay. Recognize you are baling really large hay for the size of the baler.

You understand how adjusting the feeder forks will affect making a banana bale in a full size baler. Lot's of people don't understand that and try to adjust the windrow instead of the machine. I have a neighbor like that.
 
(quoted from post at 18:42:03 06/27/17) With the pickup on the left you know you have to paint it Allis orange :)

Great project! It is hard to scale down stuff, so I was going to ask about the size of your hay dogs. I think you're right that it's working better as you slick up the inside with hay. Recognize you are baling really large hay for the size of the baler.

You understand how adjusting the feeder forks will affect making a banana bale in a full size baler. Lot's of people don't understand that and try to adjust the windrow instead of the machine. I have a neighbor like that.
Click to expand...

Andy, sometimes you need to adjust the feeder forks, but usually the people that come along here are just starting out and they are trying to take it easy on their old baler so they run it too slow and rake tiny windrows.
 
(quoted from post at 18:42:03 06/27/17) With the pickup on the left you know you have to paint it Allis orange :)

HA! I was waiting for the color of it to come up! Ha, ha, ha. I have an 87 yr. old Uncle in Wyoming who used to custom bale years ago with a NH and Wisconsin Engine. When I told him I was making this back in Feb., his first questions was, "What color are you going to paint it?". Not how big is it, what size bales will it make, etc, etc, but "what color". He's a big JD 2 cylinder guy, but was partial to NH hay equipment. Was thinking it would have yellow wheels and some green here and there to match the John Deere riding mower, but not 100% sure on that.

Actually, I was wanting to put the pick-up on the other side, but all the dirt or ice augers they build work spinning CW (looking down on the shaft) so in order for me to use one of those, it had to get built on the other side of the baler. The only other option was to get a custom auger made and that wasn't going to happen. $$.
Click to expand...
 

Showcrop- I was doing that exact same thing (taking it easy) and it was my downfall. Had never been around one of these mini balers and had only watched videos of them on Y-tube, so that was the closest I got to a real one. Didn't have any plans, either, so this is all made from scratch. When I got started playing with it a few nights ago, I was taking it slow and trying to familiarize myself with it and get comfortable being around it. It takes a micro-slip of mis-timing with your hand and the feeder and you could mangle a few fingers in a blink of an eye, so I was taking it slow and it was causing the baler to be underfed, which led to the bananas. Then I started trying to troubleshoot things to fix that when I actually just needed to get comfortable with it and start shoving hay down it's throat a little faster. The longer I used it yesterday, the faster I got and the bales looked better and better. I also figured out you need to tie those twines as tight as you can get and that helps, too.
 
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