Hay wagon: 1 or 3 sides?

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(quoted from post at 17:40:34 05/19/23)
This is how I've settled on building my wagons. The one in the pictures is 8'3" wide and 20 feet long. It is the 4th or 5th one I've built, and I've built one or two since it, but it is about the optimum size and design for what I do. It has the most angled back backboard of any I have built, and is also the widest, and the hay stacks the best on it of any I have built. I can put around 120 bales on it stacking 4 high with it hooked to the back of the baler, or I could easily go 150-200 bales if I wasn't on such hilly land. The one in the picture is also on a home made running gear that I made from junk odds and ends I had laying around.

I have built them as small as 7'10" x 18' and as large as this one. I normally use 6" or 8" channel for the main runners if I can get it, but have used other scrap steel. My next one will probably have oak 3x8 runners since I have a sawmill now and can make my own lumber dirt cheap.

I bale anywhere from 500-2500 bales in a year, so I am definitely I small time operator. I use either a Farmall M or a Farmtrac 35 to mow with a New Holland 472, A John Deere 1050 with a two basket tedder, a Farmtrac 35 with a V rake or JD 1050 with a NH 256 rake, and a Massey Ferguson 35 with a New Holland 311 baler. My goal is to build 10-15 wagons and have enough barn space to bale straight onto the wagons and park them in the barn without ever unloading, until they are unloaded unto the customer's truck or trailer.

I have very little money in my wagons, just a little time, so if you are so inclined you can expand your wagon fleet without spending a lot of money.

I see no where near enough strength to hold that back rack if your front axle should happen to get two inches higher than the rear.

 

[wildwes]

(quoted from post at 03:57:08 05/20/23)

(quoted from post at 17:40:34 05/19/23)
This is how I've settled on building my wagons. The one in the pictures is 8'3" wide and 20 feet long. It is the 4th or 5th one I've built, and I've built one or two since it, but it is about the optimum size and design for what I do. It has the most angled back backboard of any I have built, and is also the widest, and the hay stacks the best on it of any I have built. I can put around 120 bales on it stacking 4 high with it hooked to the back of the baler, or I could easily go 150-200 bales if I wasn't on such hilly land. The one in the picture is also on a home made running gear that I made from junk odds and ends I had laying around.

I have built them as small as 7'10" x 18' and as large as this one. I normally use 6" or 8" channel for the main runners if I can get it, but have used other scrap steel. My next one will probably have oak 3x8 runners since I have a sawmill now and can make my own lumber dirt cheap.

I bale anywhere from 500-2500 bales in a year, so I am definitely I small time operator. I use either a Farmall M or a Farmtrac 35 to mow with a New Holland 472, A John Deere 1050 with a two basket tedder, a Farmtrac 35 with a V rake or JD 1050 with a NH 256 rake, and a Massey Ferguson 35 with a New Holland 311 baler. My goal is to build 10-15 wagons and have enough barn space to bale straight onto the wagons and park them in the barn without ever unloading, until they are unloaded unto the customer's truck or trailer.

I have very little money in my wagons, just a little time, so if you are so inclined you can expand your wagon fleet without spending a lot of money.

https://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto105882.jpg[/img]

If you stack hay properly the bales are tied together and there is very little horizontal pressure against the backboard. That is one of the reasons I like the board leaned back- it ties the stacks together from the front to the back of the wagon.

It is just like the sides- the bales don't fall off the sides of the wagon when going across hills where the wagon is leaning sideways, unless they are improperly stacked. For that matter, we haul on wagons and trailers that don't have a backboard too. The backboard is used more to help get an even stack than to support the load. I use either 3" or 4" channel for the backboard uprights, whichever I have around at the time, but have used pine 2x4"s which are nowhere near as strong without breaking one. I do like steel much better, it lasts longer.

Do y'all have a lot of very hilly ground where you are? What do y'all use for your backboards?

 

[showcrop]

(quoted from post at 05:25:07 05/20/23)

(quoted from post at 03:57:08 05/20/23)

(quoted from post at 17:40:34 05/19/23)
This is how I've settled on building my wagons. The one in the pictures is 8'3" wide and 20 feet long. It is the 4th or 5th one I've built, and I've built one or two since it, but it is about the optimum size and design for what I do. It has the most angled back backboard of any I have built, and is also the widest, and the hay stacks the best on it of any I have built. I can put around 120 bales on it stacking 4 high with it hooked to the back of the baler, or I could easily go 150-200 bales if I wasn't on such hilly land. The one in the picture is also on a home made running gear that I made from junk odds and ends I had laying around.

I have built them as small as 7'10" x 18' and as large as this one. I normally use 6" or 8" channel for the main runners if I can get it, but have used other scrap steel. My next one will probably have oak 3x8 runners since I have a sawmill now and can make my own lumber dirt cheap.

I bale anywhere from 500-2500 bales in a year, so I am definitely I small time operator. I use either a Farmall M or a Farmtrac 35 to mow with a New Holland 472, A John Deere 1050 with a two basket tedder, a Farmtrac 35 with a V rake or JD 1050 with a NH 256 rake, and a Massey Ferguson 35 with a New Holland 311 baler. My goal is to build 10-15 wagons and have enough barn space to bale straight onto the wagons and park them in the barn without ever unloading, until they are unloaded unto the customer's truck or trailer.

I have very little money in my wagons, just a little time, so if you are so inclined you can expand your wagon fleet without spending a lot of money.

I see no where near enough strength to hold that back rack if your front axle should happen to get two inches higher than the rear.

If you stack hay properly the bales are tied together and there is very little horizontal pressure against the backboard. That is one of the reasons I like the board leaned back- it ties the stacks together from the front to the back of the wagon.

It is just like the sides- the bales don't fall off the sides of the wagon when going across hills where the wagon is leaning sideways, unless they are improperly stacked. For that matter, we haul on wagons and trailers that don't have a backboard too. The backboard is used more to help get an even stack than to support the load. I use either 3" or 4" channel for the backboard uprights, whichever I have around at the time, but have used pine 2x4"s which are nowhere near as strong without breaking one. I do like steel much better, it lasts longer.

Do y'all have a lot of very hilly ground where you are? What do y'all use for your backboards?

Yes, we have hilly ground. I have been haying for around forty years. As a kid I used to stack pretty much every bale on the wagons for an 80 milker dairy farm. I have been baling onto bale wagons with a thrower for for the last twenty years. Before I went to bale wagons My flat wagons had uprights that attached to the back ends of the main beams with 1/4 thick steel pockets, which held the backboards straight up. I have seen back-slanted backboards collapse twice. I don't see how when you are putting bales against that backboard you can keep the weight of those bales off it.

 

[wildwes]

(reply to post at 05:48:07 05/20/23)

Your experience outweighs mine, I have only been haying for around 20 years. Who knows, I may have a backboard break or bend one of these days. So far the main damage I have had was the ones with 2x4 uprights would get torn up when pulling the empty wagons on the road, from the bouncing and flopping. Ratchet strapping them tight when empty helped with that.

I actually think the original design of my first wagon was more or less a copy of one I found on a post on this very site, close to 15 years ago, including the design for the backboard.

The way I figure it is this- I bale my bales 36-40 inches long. The backboard is leaned back a max of around 8 inches at the top, approximately 5 feet tall, so two or more feet of any bale is overlapped on the one under it, with friction providing some holding force when on hills. And two sticks of 3" channel welded to the runners, with two pipes welded between them and boards bolted to them is plenty strong for that. I might be off base with some of my assumptions, but it works for me.