New Holland 634

[Margo]

I have a New Holland 634 round baler and am having trouble sometimes making a good shaped good looking bale. Belts are new. Some bales are really good others aren’t. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Jim.ME]

I have a New Holland 634 round baler and am having trouble sometimes making a good shaped good looking bale. Belts are new. Some bales are really good others aren’t. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

In my opinion most of the bale shape issues are the operator not "reading" windrows right and weaving as needed to evenly fill the bale chamber as the bale is built. If you make good bales when you have big wide windrows and misshapen bales with narrow light windrows it is caused by not compensating for uneven feeding by maneuvering the windrow back and forth across the pickup for an even build.

 

[Margo]

Bales are shaped pretty decent. Some are okay and some are shaggy looking. Wondering if speed or length of hay would make a difference.

 

[DRussell]

Show us a picture of each, the good looking bales and the shaggy ones.

Does this baler have manual or automatic tie? If manual the "shaggy" look could come from differences in the twine tying.

 

[Margo]

It is electric manual tie. Use same routine on each bale. Will get pictures when I bale tomorrow.

 

[DanielW]

I'll second the request for a picture. Shorter hay for me is a little harder to make a good bale with, but certainly not impossible. The biggest key (especially for old balers without mega-wide pickup or augers) is to avoid a constant weave back and forth. You want to crowd one side for a while, then scoot as fast as you can over to the other side and crowd it for a while. Spend as little time in the middle of the windrow as possible.

Although at 'first glance' it may seem like the right thing to do is to weave back and forth steadily and evenly, when you think about it a little more it doesn't work like that. Consider the width of the baler divided into three sections: Left, Centre, and Right. Let's say you start at the left side and weave evenly and steadily, feeding each section for the same time. You'd be feeding it:

Left - Centre - Right - Centre - Left - Centre - Right - Centre... (and repeating)

Notice how many times you were feeding 'Left" - two times. Same with 'Right'. But you were feeding 'Centre' four times. Thus: a constant, steady weave will create inconsistent, barrel-shaped bales because the centre will be fed twice as much as the sides. So you need to spend (at least) twice as much time feeding the sides as you are the centre. And the closer to the very outside edges you can feed it, the better.

If your wife/mother has a really old-school sewing machine kicking around that takes the wide bobbins, look at the mechanism for winding the bobbins. You'll see the cam that moves the feeder arm back and forth is heart-shaped, to make it cross the centre very fast and stay at the sides for extended periods. That's essentially what you're trying to do.

 

[DRussell]

It is electric manual tie. Use same routine on each bale. Will get pictures when I bale tomorrow.

I understand, my baler is the same. Even so, it can be difficult to get exactly the same amount of twine everywhere on the baler in exactly the same amount equally across the bale.

 

[DanielW]

I'll second the request for a picture. Shorter hay for me is a little harder to make a good bale with, but certainly not impossible. The biggest key (especially for old balers without mega-wide pickup or augers) is to avoid a constant weave back and forth. You want to crowd one side for a while, then scoot as fast as you can over to the other side and crowd it for a while. Spend as little time in the middle of the windrow as possible.

Although at 'first glance' it may seem like the right thing to do is to weave back and forth steadily and evenly, when you think about it a little more it doesn't work like that. Consider the width of the baler divided into three sections: Left, Centre, and Right. Let's say you start at the left side and weave evenly and steadily, feeding each section for the same time. You'd be feeding it:

Left - Centre - Right - Centre - Left - Centre - Right - Centre... (and repeating)

Notice how many times you were feeding 'Left" - two times. Same with 'Right'. But you were feeding 'Centre' four times. Thus: a constant, steady weave will create inconsistent, barrel-shaped bales because the centre will be fed twice as much as the sides. So you need to spend (at least) twice as much time feeding the sides as you are the centre. And the closer to the very outside edges you can feed it, the better.

If your wife/mother has a really old-school sewing machine kicking around that takes the wide bobbins, look at the mechanism for winding the bobbins. You'll see the cam that moves the feeder arm back and forth is heart-shaped, to make it cross the centre very fast and stay at the sides for extended periods. That's essentially what you're trying to do.

Further to my last reply: The last time I posted about that (and later when I posted that you can make a good bale out of a poorly-raked windrow) a lot of folks responded that they didn't agree, and even more people responded saying you need a perfectly-raked windrow to make good bales. I took this first picture to prove my point: This was baled with an early 80's Vermeer 504G at our Southern farm - no monitor, manual rope-pull tie. About as crude a baler as you can get. My father raked the hay. Although I'm always grateful for his help and I wouldn't have got it done in time without his help - his raking leaves a lot to be desired. Done with a single rotary rake, and windrow consistently varied from almost nothing to choking out the baler.

Second picture was baled with the Deere 435 at our Northern farm. The White 2-105 we usually bale with had broken down, so I put the baler on the 6600. My brother was all hot/bothered to tear apart the dash of the White to disconnect the monitor and move it over, and I told him I could make good bales just fine without a monitor (I took the picture in one of our most inconsistent fields to prove my point and rub in his face later). That would have been raked with a Deere 670 bar rake.

Bottom line: You don't need a fancy baler, nor a perfectly-raked windrow, nor great/consistent hay to make a good bale. Sticking to the edges and spending as little time in the centre as possible is the real key.

 

[Margo]

Will take some pictures when I bale. What about speed? Seems like 3rd gear is a bit fast and 2nd a bit slow.

 

[DanielW]

Will take some pictures when I bale. What about speed? Seems like 3rd gear is a bit fast and 2nd a bit slow.

Really depends on the tractor and how comfortable you are. If you're new to round baling, I'd suggest starting slow until you're happy with how things are going, then speed up as you feel comfortable. Once you get good at knowing how to feed your baler, you can drive as fast as it can gobble it. I would guess anywhere between 2 and 5 or so MPH would be a good starting point.

Going slower gives the baler more time to pack it together and can make a slightly nicer, slightly tighter bale. But I find it's usually not enough to make an appreciable difference.

 

[Margo]

Stuck with keeping the sides full. Bales turned out a lot better. Thanks.

 

[495man]

I run a 630 and 638

I start bale in middle for a few feet than just feed the left and right, once the chamber is full I move to the center and tie the bale.

I bale around 4-5 MPH. I can bale faster on lighter windrows but I normally rake heavy windrows.

 

[Tx Jim]

Bottom line: You don't need a fancy baler, nor a perfectly-raked windrow, nor great/consistent hay to make a good bale. Sticking to the edges and spending as little time in the centre as possible is the real key.
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There are steering wheel holders & there are ""tractor/rd baler operators"". IMHO You fall into the category of an excellent tractor/rd baler operator. Not every tractor/rd baler operator exerts the effort necessary to make a perfectly level bale of hay. The nice appearing bales in your photos appear to have more twine applied to them than I'd care to have to remove. That's one of several reasons I switched to netwrap 20 yrs ago.

Larger, level, wide windrows make creating level rd bales easier. Just consider the """tractor/rake/baler combinations"" that are being used in hay fields where I live & shown in photo below. Tractor operator in photo below has very little control/affect of rd bale shape with this type of combination.

 

[DanielW]

There are steering wheel holders & there are ""tractor/rd baler operators"". IMHO You fall into the category of an excellent tractor/rd baler operator. Not every tractor/rd baler operator exerts the effort necessary to make a perfectly level bale of hay. The nice appearing bales in your photos appear to have more twine applied to them than I'd care to have to remove. That's one of several reasons I switched to netwrap 20 yrs ago.

Larger, level, wide windrows make creating level rd bales easier. Just consider the """tractor/rake/baler combinations"" that are being used in hay fields where I live & shown in photo below. Tractor operator in photo below has very little control/affect of rd bale shape with this type of combination.

That's a pretty slick setup. I doubt I could even turn that unit around in most of my small, pokey fields.

I actually have to give you (TxJim) the credit for any skill I have in operating a baler: It was a post by you (pretty sure it was you) on these forums about 15 years ago, talking about sticking to the edges that prompted me to think about it. Until then, I'd never given it any thought and had just been just weaving steadily like my grandfather always did - making raggy and barrel-shaped bales

I do load up my bales with a lot of twine, which takes more time than I'd like in the field. I think our next baler will probably be net, but I'm still not 100% convinced it's ideal for us in our Northern climate. I do a fair bit with a neighbour's 467 with net. It's much nicer to operate in the field, and for 80% of our hay that's dry and stored inside it's dandy. But for the 20% of our hay that's wrapped or stored outside, the snow and ice that get into the net make it a nightmare to remove.

Although I criticized my brother above for making ugly bales, he criticizes me for how long it takes me to take twine off a bale. He's something of a wizard at it: With his gloved left hand he keeps two fingers open and slides them up at an angle across the bale as he cuts from the bottom up with the right hand, capturing the cut twine ends between the two fingers just before each strand is cut. He then does this nifty little wrap with his wrist, tying all the cut ends together in a knot (essentially using his left hand like a billhook). He then pulls the knotted twines off as one unit. It usually only takes him 10 or 15 seconds to get all the twine off a bale. Although I try to match him and am getting better at it, I'm still nowhere near as good as him at it.

 

[Margo]

These are how they turned out.