Great example of the frustrations and joys of small square bales. Glad you got it figured out. Getting all the rusty parts shined up will only help it run better. Thanks for the video
Man seeing square balers run brings me back to my childhood days of helping in hay lol. I’m a bit fatter now, and more out of shape with a bad back, plus all the old timers I used to help in hay have died off now. Such is the circle of life. But just seeing yours run made me smell that hay dust all over again!
I had the same experience with a JD 336 baler. Pulled it out of the barn it was in for 30 years, greased it and headed for the field. Had 2 unused 30 year old bolt of twine in it. Swapped them out for Rural kings finest and it rarely misses a tie.
From running my 520 baler I saw the shear pin braking as soon as I saw that slug of hay laying there in the windrow. Big thing with these balers is that you got to think of when the baler was built how hay was made, Meaning a 7 or 9 foot cut single windrowed hay as they are not a high capacity baler. A good single constant windrow and they will run like a sewing machine. My old 520 I've found about every 250 bales give the knotters a shot of grease and it keeps baling like a champ trouble free. One of these days I would love to get the new 520 baler out and try it out, It may have baled maybe 4000 total bales in its life ! It was bought new used 2 years and its sat in the barn unused except when my uncle used it a couple of times when his baler went down to finish up a field of hay. I like you really like the roto flow feature of these balers as the hay flows so much smoother threw the baler than an auger does. Bandit
Wow. I couldn't imagine coming across this video. I spent many hours on a gasoline 550 in front of the 520 baler in the 60s. We'd put up as much as 2,000 bales a year for our use. And, daddy would let me do a bit of custom work in the neighborhood if I paid for twine, fuel and all repairs. I still have Oliver green paint on my butt.🙂 We had an all Oliver compliment: 7' sickle bar mower, single gang rake and the 520. Daddy's brother was a mechanic for the Oliver dealer. That baler doesn't like over feeding. The knotters are finicky with what twine you use. Back then, it was sisal and you'd better buy the premium grade. I had to learn how to time the knotters because they would get out of time at least weekly. Wouldn't break the needles, just miss tied. That's a big problem when you miss bales while doing custom work. I was getting $0.50/bale and customers didn't want to pay the bale counter tally.🥺 Thanks for sharing. I'm a new subscriber. 👍👍👏👏🇺🇲
beautiful sight , and all the problem was bad string , ones there shined up inside helps too but you got her working and you were covering the ground pretty fast for a smaller baler , never understood why you don't have a bale sledge or accumulator as you call it , we had just a old sledge that did not put into any pattern for a loader it just held them until you had say 8 then you pull the rope and let them out saves so much time when picking them up , we did have a thing called a Perry loader but you stacked them up from the sledge then you picked them up with the perry loader , just arms that squeezed the bottom 2 bales and lifted on the trailer , we did not have the flat eight system and moved onto round bales back then , so much easier than a pitch fork before the loaders came in , but things a bit different here in the UK than USA , we did have IH tractors though which i really love and still have a IH674 that I use now just done silage with her all the mowing and getting in the bales but have a contractor who bales and raps them , love the older kit like you and mainly we can fix them ourselves none of all these electrical stuff to go wrong or GPS , for a straight line when ploughing i use 2 posts and drive in line with them like my Dad did and grandfather did 😉 great vid sorry for going on a bit there
Good morning young man! You took me back to my younger days when times were simpler, and well I really enjoyed that. I can't tell you how many times I had the same experience with the knotter or the twine sweep, etc.... I'm so glad you got her going, fun to watch, thanks for the nice memories. I'll be doing some square baling this year too, just not sure how much. Good luck with the rest of it, have a good day!
That turned out real nice. It sounded nice and quiet as well. Thanks for sharing. Bales came out looking great after you got it set up right. See you later.
As I was watching you struggle I kept thinking it was your twine. I had a Massey 9 baler that wouldn't tie two bales back to back if I used the yellow Co-op or Tractor Supply twine. I found some green Brazilian sisal twine at the local hardware store and that dumb baler would tie 800 bales and never miss a tie. Something to do with uniform size because that Massey was very sensitive to thick and thin sections in the twine.
Nice video Ross. Some new twine and some minor adjustments and the ole bailer is ready to go. Nice to see you brought it back to life. Congrats and a great job.
Hey Ross. Maybe if you find a bargain on a bale basket you could see if that would work on your baler so you don't have to pick them up. Plus you can throw a tarp on it overnight. Those bill hooks need to be absolutely clean and shiny. I have oiled them to get things going.
We used an Oliver 60 twine baler back in the seventies. Had to be careful not to overstuff the pickup or the shear bolt would break. All in all it was a good machine
That video brought back a lot of memories for me. As a kid, I spent a lot of time baling with our Oliver baler. It was either a model 50 or 60. We traded it on the MF 120 I currently have.
At the end of season clean baler and spray paint all surfaces, so that the next time to use every thing flows easily just as it will do in mid season. No rust equals easy flow of hay., and less wear and tear of machine.
When splicing the twine, use a square knot and rub/roll the knot between your hands like trying to keep warm on a blustery day. Goal is more a lump with smooth ramp sides than a bale-knot from the knotters. Then it will feed better, less snagging. Up next you need to weld up a drag behind bale accumulator! It wasn't until youtube that I ever saw those (and the auto loading trucks), accumulators would have been sweet to have.
Twine condition is very important with square balers. On my CIH inline baler I found that as the parts wear, it is better to use thicker twine. Instead of 9600 twine I use the 7200. I also use plastic twine. I was saying all along change the twine. Ha ha. Square balers are great when they work. When they don't it would make a Preacher lose his religion.
I had a feeling that little baler would end up doing a nice job, it's just too straight for it's age to not be a good baler. Just like with all things that have some age on them, they need a little love and renewing to be perfect. I think you made a good buy with that one. Man I had the same issue with twine on my IH baler one time. I nearly burnt that thing to the ground before it just caught my eye that the twine was discolored so I tried changing the balls of twine and the problem went away.
Yes it nice to see it actually working the way it should twine can be a big problem. When I was on the farm we had an old 45t international it not tie very good so dad would not use it. I had to put up one year and no one to bale it igot some good twine it worked great.
On older balers I’ve found that 7200 twine balls work better than 8-9000 count ones especially if you use sisal twine . Brazilian gold from tractor supply is my go to
Knotters are finicky creatures they don’t like to be wet from lubricants , they don’t like to be dirty and they seem to like only certain brands of twine. And they don’t like rain.
You're not staring down rain clouds so less applies but to properly repair a knotter requires a 12inch Crescent wrench to have the necessary heft to beat the thing into submission while swearing profusely. I learned all the important cuss words as a kid around balers. We baled with an 880.
was going to mention few videos back roll up the knotters check wiper arm clearance & look for wear inner side billhooks twine wears metal away just enough knot can't get wiped out no matter how good the wiper arm works those wiper arms are ductile grey cast iron 1 small tree branch they're messed up again. 9000ft plastic twine knives have to be sharp or you'll get a 20ft long bale
The knotters on balers can be infuriating. I remember battling the knotters on our JD 346 baler one summer. Your video gave me a little ptsd. Still enjoyed seeing it run.
Enjoyed that very much! So awesome to watch an old baler still working! How do you maintain a "G" rating when things don't want to work? When my baler won't tie, there are a lot of 4 letter words at high volume!
My dad brought a 520 brand new in early sixties. It was a great baler and did a good job on about 10,000 bales a year until it sold in his auction in the early seventies. It sure beat the Massey baler he traded in on it.
Those old balers can be frustrating but a lot of times if you do a little adjusting you can get them to go. A lot of people will pull those old balers out and start using them without adjustment or care of any kind then when they don't work call em junk.
You have two major problems and one minor problem Ross. The first one is the windrows granted half as big as you are used to, but twicd as big as the 1960 technology can handle. The other thing is that 770 is way more tractor than you need. A 60 without live power would allow you to appreciate stopping to unclog the baler cause you wont have enough power to break the shear bolt. The minor problem you are dealing with you need several old flatbeds and a couple 14 year old kids stacking. Once you get all the hay you have cut baled now, in a month or so you go after the second cutting, and then the third. Oh and remember to keep some tires and tire repairs around for the flatbeds or maybe four or five spares too. In1955-1965 you would have made the front cover of SUCCESSFUL FARMING. Your folks would be so proud of their boy. No saddness here. Love those vides. Keep them coming!
one big advantage of square bales is that you can put 3-4 bales in the back of your butt buggy truck and feed when your tractor with a heavy bale on it might get stuck.
You could have bad twine too. Been years since I messed with a square baler. Trying to remember all the little things that the picky bastards can throw a fit over.
Great old bailers Ross, as I said before I had a 62 T , greese , oil, clean them out ,put merical elixer on it and out of the weather .She will run like a Swiss Watch as the expression used.👍Ps: I knew it was the string from the get go. You never ,never run old hemp twine. Moron ! lol.
I was gonna say you should have put in new twine to begin with because that others looked awful bad even on the phone and I used to work on new holland balers and I even went to school at new holland for balers
