Help, PLEASE! Bale Sled details wanted.

[bigbear]

Hi!

 

When I was a lad in the 1960's, one of my summer jobs was to man the bale sled which was dragged behind the baler for the rider to stack and drop bales from. Does anybody have some/ could take some good pictures of one of these, please?

 

I have no idea of the make of these, or if they were just a custom unit.

 

The sled was wooden and was dragged on runners behind the baler. It was 4 bales wide, (bales front to back), or 2 bales wide, if placed across the sled. The sled was deep enough front to back, for a man to stand on and just swivel the bales with a hook into position. The bales were placed on spikes coming up through the floor to stop them sliding off. After three layers of 4 bales were stacked, (or more...), a handle could be lifted to drop the spikes and lower the back of the sled, so allowing the stack to be dumped onto the field, to be collected later.

 

We just called it a 'bale sled', but googling this doesn't bring up anything older than the metal 'drop 'em as they fall', unmanned type of sled that came after the one I am talking about...

 

Any help will be very welcome, as my farming friends think I'm making this up!

 

Thanks.

[NIGEL FORD]

the one we had (no idea what make...NOT New Idea!!) was just a front steel plate with 2 chains converging to the underside of the bale chamber but with wooden slats (3/4"?) bolted to the front plate, one of which had a tubular socket bolted on to hold the spear that you rammed in the ground between the slats once you'd made the pile of bales and this then pushed the pile off. You followed the pile off the back,keeping the spear upright to retrieve the spear and jump back on the slats before the next bale needed placing having replaced the spear in its socket....too bad if the ground was too hard to spear into. We didn't keep it long, the piles fell over on our banks or didn't come off going downhill and of course needed manning, and how did one transport it!?

  We then bought a Nu-Way Benson Bale-Buncher for the next 35+ years that rolled up and carried over the pick-up area on a heavy sheet; far more reliable (once modified) than any flat 8 sledge (wives/father/ourselves for that job as we often stooked in "tripod" 4s before flat 8 loading in more inclement weather).

  I seem to recall the type you mention was part of a feature some time ago by Brian Bell in possibly "Old Tractor" magazine, maybe Johnson/Nicholson/Perry/ Blanch maybe Twose being down your way?

Edited January 14, 2013 by NIGEL FORD

[jdc]

We had one when I was very young. The sledge ran on two timber runners about 200 x 50mm with steel wearing strips.There was a platform behind baler about 1metre square where the stacker stood. Behind this was a tilting floor which could take two bales laid fore and aft on edge. Spikes fitted to the runners projected through this floor and held the bales in place.

9 bales were then stacked (2,2,2,2,1)and when the last one was in place a bolt on the floor was kicked to allow the floor to tip gently backwards, lifting the bales off the fixed spikes. The theory was that the 'stook' would slide gracefully off and remain standing! Theory and practice did not always agree.

The floor would return to horizontal and the bolt locked it in place ready for the next bale. This was soon superseded by the 'bulk' collectors and then 'square eights'.

[bigbear]

Thanks very much for the replies. Sounds like variations on a theme. Ours was very reliable and hardly a stack toppled! (Might have been my amazing bale sled skills, of course!)

 

Certainly, I remember it running on the wooden skids, but it definitely had room for 4 bales abreat... I shall continue the search!

 

 

Cheers!