V Rake

[flying belgian]

I do some small sq baling for a lady. Its a 4 acre triangle of grass. Its really nice clean hay and produces well. She has a couple horses which is beside the point. She has her neighbor mow and rake it. He rakes with a Vermeer V rake. I've never seen such a terrible job of raking in my life. All big bunches and skips. Is that because it is a small odd shaped field? or is he just a poor operator? Or is that the nature of V rakes?

 

[Jim Wendt]

First of all, how bad was it mowed, but triangles are hard to rake.

 

[flying belgian]

First of all, how bad was it mowed, but triangles are hard to rake.

Mowing is always done well.

 

[Vito]

Real art to take properly. I tried it once and that's is all I'm saying about that.

Vito

 

[Jim.ME]

Sounds like it is bunching and dragging from a lot of sharp turning.

 

[Ellis Kinney]

I have used v rakes, but on larger fields and they do fine. I would say all the turning on such a small field would cause problems. I have several small 5 or 6 acre fields and I use a basket rake which works well. Ellis

 

[paul]

Those wheel rakes are a miserable thing on odd little bits of hay ground. They are designed to work in long straight windrows. Curves and angles and lots of turning, ugh.

I’m glad I got my 5 wheel cheap wheel rake for some jobs and backup duty; but for the type of irregular hay fields here I’m glad I didn’t spend much money on one. Granted a good quality one would work better I understand. And a v wheel rake seems so inflexable I don’t know how you can efficently use on of those in less than perfect big rectangular fields.

But, I didn’t say I was a good rake operator either………

Paul

 

[flying belgian]

Those wheel rakes are a miserable thing on odd little bits of hay ground. They are designed to work in long straight windrows. Curves and angles and lots of turning, ugh.

I’m glad I got my 5 wheel cheap wheel rake for some jobs and backup duty; but for the type of irregular hay fields here I’m glad I didn’t spend much money on one. Granted a good quality one would work better I understand. And a v wheel rake seems so inflexable I don’t know how you can efficently use on of those in less than perfect big rectangular fields.

But, I didn’t say I was a good rake operator either………

Paul

As discussed on here before, noone should operate a rake who hasn't operated a baler.But in this case the guy also does lots of round baling. That leads me to believe the rake itself must be the culprit.