I’m 65 and really like the fact that you two young men aren’t afraid of working. I’ve mowed with a sickle bar mower most of my life. If their set up right there great. One thing I noticed from your video is it looks like the end of your bar is trailing behind. it’s very important that the far end of the bar be parallel to or slightly ahead of the mowing machine. There’s adjustments on the mowing machine to do this. Also check your knife sections and ledger plates and make sure they are tight and sharp. Also stick with all steel or cast iron guides. Keep trying and you will get it. By the way I just subscribed.
Lol. Nice. It reminds me of vacation time in the 1980s in my motherland Poland. My grandparents had farmland there close to the border with Belarus and Ukraine. A lot of physical work but I do remember that time as best in my life. God bless you all.
Love seeing you using older equipment. I custom hated for years with older equipment and did great. I also have a 350 farmall and loved it for baling. Has torque amplifier and made having to slow down for heavy areas a breeze. Keep up the good work.
Nice work guys keep on trying its the best way to learn and keep listening to some of those old guys they just might have been around the field afew times.
Glad to see some old red tractors in action! One piece of advice. When buying new teeth or tines for your rake get all metal tines. The Cheap bonded rubber tines will fail every time, even brand new ones. You will end up with flat tires and damaged knives on your baler when running those. Hop online and you might be able to find them cheaper than going to the dealer. Deere and caseIH have parts books online.
Y’all should try to get your rpm’s up and drop one gear for the mower. I spent a ton of hours working with one of them. Good luck guys. FYI…. I’m loving the older equipment!!!
Love the vintage equipment which reminded me of my youth on the farm in the 50s. I cut hay with a 7' sickle mower and a Farmall F-12 with no guard on the PTO shaft and a long lever to lift the sickle bar. Pocket gopher mounds meant a clogged sickle and occasionally a section would be knocked out or broken which meant a quick field repair. The challenge was to leave no standing hay at a corner.
Ok guys. I love to see you starting out with what you've got. Two things stand out. When mowing, run your tractor another 6" to the left. You are leaving too many uncut strips. Nothing looks better than a "clean" field. Second, when raking do your first outside round counter clockwise like you did. Then do the rest of the field clockderwise. That turns ALL the hay. Counter clockwise leaves a strip of unturned hay under the windrow. Be sure your mower sections are totally SHARP. Lift the mower at the corner and square it off if you have trouble clogging trying to turn while mowing. But good job anyway. Love to see the initiative
I grew up running that kind of equipment. 55 years old now. Best advice I can give came from my Grandpa. Grease is always cheaper than parts. In other words keep that old stuff oiled and greesed.
Thanks for sharing. It's kind of hard to tell from the video, but it kind of looks like the outside end of your sickle bar is further back than the end closer to the tractor. My apologies if I'm seeing it wrong. If so, it would be better to adjust the mower so that the bar is perpendicular to the tractor and mower. (In other words the sickle bar operates best if it sticks straight out to the side, rather than being "swept back".) The hay will enter the guards, ledger plates, sickle sections, etc. better and will be less likely to plug, especially in very heavy hay, and difficult conditions. Only other suggestion would be to put a muffler on the tractor. It might sound really cool now, but when you are my age and wearing a hearing aid, you'll wish you had put a muffler on the tractor. Good luck with everything, and I hope you are successful!
I suggest you boys check out Just a few acres farm RU-vid channel and get ahold of Pete. Pete puts up quite a bit of hay and really seems to know his stuff about hay field management. I know nothing at all about it but I sure enjoy watching Pete. Plus, he also does it with antique international tractors and "vintage implements! In fact, I thought this was his channel when i saw your equipment. He should be able to educate you greatly! Plus, he is a VERY nice guy!
Find the manual for that mower and set it up properly, will make a significant difference. That farmall is not enough for most haybines. Replace the missing fingres on your rake and will do a better job. Depending on how thick your grass is, but I like to rake 2 swaths into 1 wind row. Yes check out Pete from just a few acres farm.
That appears to be some thick stuff. Can't tell if you're cutting all or just pushing some over. Those knives have to be sharp and the rock guards have to be in good shape. The knife needs to just barely rub against the guard in order to cut right.. Too much gap and it's not cutting.. I learned at the age of 46 how to use a sickle mower and cut with it for the next 15 years. Yes, there were times of frustration, but I had old timers to go to for advice. Mine was a 3pt. Ford with a 7' bar. When I had it dialed in, it would cut anything.
Good job getting started is the first step. To me. You are running to fast. A lot of hay just broken over. Drop down a gear. See if your rate and time will be in proportion. Give the sycle mower some time to cut. Rpm’s up. To move the bar. I would cut the hay when growth is younger. Not as tough for cattle to eat . Tall hay is tough for cattle to chew. Cattle will walk on it. In winter.. younger hay will be tender better feed for cattle. Need rake fixed. Tree limbs need to be cut back. You are loosing pasture from over hang of tree limbs. Great job. Kudos.
First of all sickle mowers don’t suck. You have to adjust them properly. Looks like you may have lag in the blade. The mower blade needs to be at a right angle of the tractor, actually the tip of the blade should be 6” ahead of the base of the blade. Then when you are cutting it will pull back and be at right angle of the tractor. This has both sides of the knife and guards cutting equally. There is adjustments on the mower to set lead. Also. Knife timing needs to be same on each side. This is adjusted on pitman. Then there is draft on the blade. Draft too deep and , you are digging in the ground, or duff at base of grass. Draft too shallow it slides over hay. Sharp knife sections, guard in good shape, ledger plates sharp, hold downs for knife properly set. A sickle mower does great if properly set up, does terrible if not. One more thing, slow down. Looked like you were mowing in fourth gear there once. Field will look terrible. Looked like hay was not cured when you raked it to. A rake ain’t gonna rake with half the teeth gone, yours looks like 2/3 of the teeth are gone. If you don’t do it right, you are just wasting gas and time.
Cut hundreds of acres with sickle bar mower never had a problem. Knives have to be sharp and guards in good shape. What do you think older haybines used sickle.
