IH sickle bar mower again

I post this at the risk of boring ya'll but I promise this is the last I bring it up. I last said I was going to park the IH 7' sickle mower because I was disgusted with the way it cut. I recorded a video of it and keep looking back at it to try to learn what was wrong. I can't post the video here though. All the hardware looks to be good enough to cut but I think the real problem is it isn't cutting right even though I can't identify the issue. So, it is now parked but one last question: the bar has skid plates on its bottom that make me think you just drop the bar on the ground and let it eat but when I tried that it plugged up right away. Is that an incorrect method or are you supposed to constantly adjust the bar height up and down?

Before I parked it, I decided I should park it in usable condition at least. So, I made a new pitman out of white oak again (observing the wood grain direction), replaced a broken knife section (with a used one), fabricated a new bronze bushing for the bearing end of the pitman (a crude fabrication) and greased everything up. Maybe someone will want to try it again some day, mebbe even me. Thanks, Michael

SleepyFarmall . Is the pit man arm that you made the right length? it has to be the correct length.Not necessarily the same length as your old one.That could be your problem.The cycle knifes have to line up center of the guards when the pit man arm is at half stroke and in time.

I used to cut my hay with a IH sickle bar mower with a wooden pitman, when I started farming 43 years ago. There are several things that need to be right for the mower to cut properly with out the knife just plugging or the mower plugging and braking on the spring loaded latch. First the condition of the guards. Does your mower have good ledger plates, or are they worn. Are the guard tops close enough to the knife to hold the knife near the ledger plates and the hold downs also have to keep the knife running tight to the bar. Its really just like a big set of scissors, the knife must meet the ledger plate tightly. And lastly the sections must be sharp. Grass requires a very sharp knife to cut without plugging, whereas alfalfa will cut comparably easy. I have gone from cutting a nice stand of Alfalfa hay with no problems, and moved to the next field which was grass and couldnt cut anything with plugging. Pulled the knife and took it to the grinder and sharpened the sections, then could cut just fine.

Without new sections it'll never cut good or cut at all.And a pitman mower will never cut as good as a belt driven one.

There are a dozen things that can give you troubles....

Simce you messed with the pitman, is your mower registered properly? By that: does the sickle move from the center of the guards in ompne direction, tot he center of the guards in the other direction? Changing direction with the sickle sections centered on the guards?

Others have mentioned this as well.

That is one thing.

Are the hold downs holding the sickles down flat against the guards?

Are the sickle sections and the guards both sharp, so the scissors action is happening with the edges of everything sharp like a scissors, and the two sides held down next to each other with the hold downs?

Paul

At this time of year there may be some dead grass leaves near the ground that don't get dry without several days of warm dry weather if they get dry at all. These dead leaves are very tough and tend to plug the sickle. If the mower had mowed OK earlier but won't now the dead grass may be the cause and nothing you do will change that.

A worse situation for a mower that isnt set up perfectly is tender short young grass, it needs a perfect scissors action. Old steamy hay often cuts pretty easy by comparison.

So as you say the type of hay being tried is also a part of the issue?

Paul

The skid shoes are supposed to skid on the ground. Otherwise the bar is higher on one end and bowed, and won't give you an even cut.

When you originally posted, I made some recommendations of thigs to check. Unless it's down/lodged or stringy wire grass, you should be able to cut just dandy. We now use a newer Deere sickle for all our hay, but up until about 8 or 9 years ago we used a pair if IH pitman mowers for all our hay. Not as fast as the Deere one, but in normal conditions you could go along at 5 or 6 MPH just fine. We rarely sharpened ours near the end: You could buy an aftermarket under-serrated knife from AI for about $120. We'd cut all our hay (about 70 acres - only one cut per year) for about 3 or 4 years, then get a new knife. Occasionally you'd damage a section on something, and when you had the knife out to repair it you might touch up a few of the worst sections, but overall the new knives worked superb for long periods without service.

Biggest thing to check: Is your knife in register? If not registered correctly, it won't cut worth a dang no matter what. Lots of people overlook this, and I suspect it's one of the chief reasons you see so many sickle mowers parked in the weeds or in fence bottoms. Apart from this: Are the hold-downs keeping knife close to the ledgers? Is the knife angle set right (level or angled down into the crop just slightly)? Are you making sure you're not trying to move the bar through grass that's already cut?

While many are covering the issues with the sickle being properly registered there can be several other issues. When we started cutting prairie hay by the hundreds of acres we learned real quick that ledger plates on the guards have to be in good shape. While mature brome and alfalfa could be cut with just about anything prairie hay needed the serrations on the ledger plates to be in good shape - along with a good sickle with its own serrations (we used bottom side serration sections). Just the tiniest of bite to hold the grass to cut it cleanly without allowing it to slide through.

The thin strip of metal, part of the guard extending back on top of the knives, needs to be more open/up at the rear than the front or it can cause hay to get stuck under it.

Earlier when I said the skid shoes should skid on the ground, I should have said they "glide" on the ground. The mower should not be down HARD on the ground so it's tearing up the sod, and it should not be held above the ground.

I am not familiar with your mower but one needs both good sickle knives and ledger plates. Also the angle at which the sickle moves over the ground should not let the sickle dig towards the ground. You should have an adjustment capable of allowing you to rotate the front of the sickle bar upwards just a bit. Just last week a neighbor was mowing with a 3 point hitch Ford 515 mower, and he asked me about his mower plugging badly. I went to see him, and we adjusted the sickle to raise the front simply by lengthening the top link a bit on the hitch. It worked much better.

Very experienced with JD #5 mowers I can say that spending $600 on all new modern components for cutter bar made a world of difference.

I appreciate this conversation. I used to cut hay(and weeds) with my grandad's H
and an old IH sickle mower, a 27v I think? but we retired it many years ago. Well
now mom is selling the property so I brought the H to my house, and just couldn't
let the sicklebar mower behind so I brought it here too. I don't know if it'll
ever run again, but I have it and it looks good setting in my yard

I have some new parts for it, including a new factory pitman arm, so if you need
any dimensions from it to verify with your own, lemme know.

I have a head unit off of what I believe is a 1100 balanced head mower.
I have powered it with a small 5 hp bs engine with gear reduction. I mount the whole thing on the FEL on the tractor an use it like a hedge trimmer in the vertical position to mow trails around my house and our deer lease.
It will cut any branch that will fit in the guides. I do not have to worry too much about close tolerances since I don't cut grass with it.