A bit of silage making in Sussex.

[Tractorman810]

nice pics fergus, do you only do one cut for the clamps in the year then?? or do you have others not started yet?

[tractorbob]

do you get contractors to do anything..you are allways busy

[jakescot]

What make is the wrapper? I think it was Reco that built one similar to that, then there was the Parmiter one that worked on a similar principal. Great thing with those wrappers is the bale can't fall off the turntable.

we had a newlands movemore wrapper which was the same as this one except it had a weldmesh cage round it and was yellow for years from their first appearance in 1986 til 1996 when we upgraded to a mc hale

it was fine , provided you slipped the tractor clutch as you reversed (our 565 didnt creep slow enough) and you were careful not to wrap downhill or else the bale if not absolutely full size used to fall against the small rear wheels and a part of the bale got less wrap than it was supposed to.uneven bales were a big problem.suppose they still are really.

over the 11 years i used the machine i will conservatively say I wrapped over 100 000  bales with it.it  would break the cogs in the hydraulic motor ( due to over revving the engine  to speed up the job, we removed the back door part of the cage, because the rams kept breaking off.the automatic pre tensioners used to wear out sometimes a few times a season ( june til end of october). at a peak with two folks attaching the film from each of the two rolls and me seldom  leaving the cab other than to help change the film reels we could wrap over 70 bales to the hour crop and field dependant.my neck used to ache, and my kee would be bruised due to putting it below the steering wheel to allow me to use both hand  for the hydraulics, one spool valve lever to rotate and one on the up n down  for the machine.I had to isolate the arms to use the spool valve and vice versa via a lever  on the other side of the seat down by the door to my left hand .

once beside the A75 for a very fussy friend who kept wanting to help us we wrapped 169 bales in two hours. dad had left at 8 am and was into his 2nd field before we arrived and started at 1pm, we left that field at 3pm all done ! the bales were close together but not too close as to be awkward, the filed was flat and it was not too warm nor bright  which always slowed me down a bit. now that was unusually quick, we`d average 60 to the hour but remember that was with a much modified machine and 3 men tied up !!!! we had a few bad bad days tho  i remember unrolling a bale that had got into the field edge trying to get it out to wrap it, also remember going to a farm where the baler operator had stuck the bales in heaps, right at the field edges , that took some sorting out , there was hardly room to get at them to omver them out without them running away.also remember one rolling off , going through a dyke , bouncing over a public road  , through a fence on the other side of the road ,down over a barley field and into a burn, i never went back for it  !!!!. I remember too losing all my oil trying to wrap 7 bales ........having been at a farm  with 2 fields of toppings one and a half was done  on the thursday night when rain stopping play  unnecessarily  for all that was left for the 50 mintue trip there it was a joke.we christened the farmer the man from the moon after that and took years to forgive him.it rained all day friday all day saturday and he decied at 4 pm on the sunday that it had to be baled up................took us 50 mins to get there, about 15 mins to gather up and wrap 5 of the 7 bales  when a  hydraulic pipe burst on the wrapper as I say all the oil was gone by the time we`d wrapped the last 2 bales so much so we couldnt lift the wrapper off the ground with the 565. had to borrow oil the guy said we could have some of his as long as we replaced it !!!! he only had 20 cows and blackface ewes , a dodgy zetor 4 wd tractor and loader, a wee old univeral whjch he rowed up with

good riddance to it in my humble opinion but had we modified it further to do away with the 2 men outside, then i could have lived with it.everyone else was pleased to see the mc hale table wrapper too !

memories eh  sorry hi hijack your topic Unc f

[unkelfergus]

Very unusual wrapper

very unusual but VERY quick 

What make is the wrapper? I think it was Reco that built one similar to that, then there was the Parmiter one that worked on a similar principal. Great thing with those wrappers is the bale can't fall off the turntable.

Youre right, its a reco thats got a lot of useless bits and pieces missing

nice pictures fergus, do you only do one cut for the clamps in the year then?? or do you have others not started yet?

All first cut in the clamps plus a few bales, second cut haylage and silage bales, any third cut...silage bales.

do you get contractors to do anything..you are allways busy

The only thing we have contractors in for are maize drilling and direct drilling of kale,which is going in tomorrow (10 acres of it)   

Yes Jake,this one originally had a weldmesh cage,back door with another roller attached operated by two rams and a 3 spool cable operated valve chest. Those 3 things lasted  1 day when I got promoted to bale wrapping,made the job 10 times quicker with all that clutter off the machine and the two tractor spools operating the rotor and the cutting arms. When we were wrapping 4 layers of film,in a good heavy cut,you could easily wrap 70 -80 bales an hour.Now we put 6 layers, you can still do 55- 60 an hour. A set of three belts lasts up to two thousand bales if kept at the correct tension.The only thing with this wrapper is using it on slopes without a back door;always wrap uphill !!. I have only ever lost one,which was a field belonging to plumpton college,on the very edge of the downs,usually a fair cut and this particular day we had nearly finished  and a bale that I had already wrapped and left on what I thought was the level,decided to go for a walk,then jog then sprint, straight over the edge of the south downs. Thank god no-one was below,because it made it all the way to the bottom through dense blackthorn and ash trees and came to rest against a fence 60 metres from the road !!

[jakescot]

oh now Id forgotten about the belt scenario........ how could i forget that, we used to carry a set , there were only two on ours until the automatic pre tensioners went onto it then they upgraded to 3. yes runaways in our area are common, as you say don`t get in the way!

funny how you can leave them where you think they will sit, even with the baler they can sit but stick plastic on them.....thats a different story!!!! .......certainly made life interesting

i love the fact you cut it to pieces  we werent allowed to totally wreck ours and some of the narrow gates in our area meant long detours  due to the cage.happy  wrappin !!!!!!!!!

[Eurodeere]

Thanks for the anecdotes. Was the wrapper in the photo originally green? Yes, always wrap up hill, that way you can put the wrap on the bale correctly and it will not try to beat Usain Bolt! I always thought those wrappers would be great hitched to a Hydro tractor, now a vario/cvt would do the job. They are a clutch and left leg killer.

[unkelfergus]

Thanks for the anecdotes. Was the wrapper in the photo originally green? Yes, always wrap up hill, that way you can put the wrap on the bale correctly and it will not try to beat Usain Bolt! I always thought those wrappers would be great hitched to a Hydro tractor, now a vario/cvt would do the job. They are a clutch and left leg killer.

It was originally red, got painted green when I removed the surplus baggage!!