What sickles to use

[JDJACK]

Have a John Deere 1219 haybine, a few years ago it cut great, then I changed sickle section and now its not cutting as good have to to go a gear slower to get a good cut but I cant remember what sections where on it then. Now they are overserrated sections that seem course. I cut grasses in nw wisconsin timothy, broom, orchard grass, ect. I do have non clog guards on it.
Also where is a good source to get sections or the entire sickle.. bolt on sections.

Thanks

 

[fastfarmall]

Yeah but if the original sickle was dull the ledger plates cut's half also, maybe it's in your guards???

 

[paul]

So......

Are your guards sharp? Are they smooth or serrated?

Smooth sickles are best with serrated guards.

Lightly serrated sickles are often best with smooth guards for fine grass plants.

Heavy serrated sickles work nice in very steamy stuff, like oats or wheat or soybean type of stalks.

But thats on average. You can find different situations something different works out better.

Then, are your hold downs set right to keep the sharp sickle blades down on the sharp guard plates......

My poor mowing always comes from letting the guards get too dull, and not keeping up with the down pressure to keep the sickle tight on the guards.

Paul

 

[Muir hill 101]

. Your guards might be getting worn out and your sections might be getting dull as well . You should have double guards not ledger plates . Ones the gap in the guard gets worn to big and the lips of the guards get worn dull youve lost you cutting action think dull scissors with a loose rivet in the middle

 

[caterpillar guy]

On our 1219 I find the sections need to set down on the guards good then have good guards. If they show a rounding near the edge of the surface where the guards would cut as the section goes through they don't cut very good. also if the hold downs are not doing they're job of holding the section down to the guard they will just pull the grass through the slot in the guard where the section travels. There are no ledger pieces on those guards.Those are left to mowing machines. I don't know how those nonclog guards work very well with a piece on top of the guard stub and looking at them Don't seem like they would work real well. Never used any nor saw any around here. I take a string and pull along the front tips of the guards and look for ones not in line with the rest of them. I then heat them with the torch under the guard by the curve in front of the bolts and bend them up or down to line up with the rest works good for ground that has stones on it. Saves on a lot of guard buying. I do that right on the machine.

 

[Muir hill 101]

Those two piece guards work really well In meadow hay dont have any alfalfa to say but they do work good in thick tangled grass

 

[DanielW]

In addition to what others have said: The over-serrated vs. under-serrated discussion pops up on this forum pretty frequently. The general consensus seems to usually be that under-serrated is best for hay/grass, over-serrated is better for dry. thick, clean crops (typically on combines). I use under-serrated almost exclusively, however, so I can't comment with any first-hand experience. It just seems to be what others usually say.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

Good advice here. I use a 1207 and have never been able to get my guard set right. It was pretty beat when I got it. I bought a new top-serrated knife right away but it only helped a little. Put a new set of guards on from Shoop but still don't have them set as well as they should be. Thanks catguy, I never thought to heat them but I have used the line just above the cutting edges. Soon as it gets warm enough I'm going at it again but pulling the reel out first. It's tough trying to swing the BFH from lying under it.

 

[Bud Sather in MT]

Take a grinder and make the guards sharp by grinding the edge of the guard. You will be amazed of how well it will cut.

 

[jhwis]

Make sure the hold downs are tight, but not binding. You should just barely be able to turn the sickle by hand with the pto. We had great luck with the tiger teeth style sections. The courser the teeth the better. Is it possible the reel isn't spinning at top speed? There are shims in there that increase or decrease the speed. Be sure knife drive belt is tight as well. We never had an issue with the guards...it was just the hold down gap. I loved the 1219. I ran two different ones for twenty plus years.

 

[caterpillar guy]

With the torch and heating the guards we just used a big cresent wrench or a pipe that fit nicely over the tips of the guards to bend them we didn't hit them to do that adjustment. Nor did we shove the pipe down to hit the sections. Red they bend rather reasonable

 

[lastcowboy32]

(quoted from post at 19:38:03 03/30/23) Have a John Deere 1219 haybine, a few years ago it cut great, then I changed sickle section and now its not cutting as good have to to go a gear slower to get a good cut but I cant remember what sections where on it then. Now they are overserrated sections that seem course. I cut grasses in nw wisconsin timothy, broom, orchard grass, ect. I do have non clog guards on it.
Also where is a good source to get sections or the entire sickle.. bolt on sections.

Thanks

Quite a few good comments.

Also check your cutterbar and the tilt of your guards. A bent cutterbar shows itself if you look at your guard tips and they are uneven. There is no way to get consistent section to ledger contact (scissor action), if your cutterbar is bent. You'll also waste a lot of power on a hard-moving sickle bar. And your sickle bar, sections and guards will wear unevenly, going dull really fast at certain points, while not wearing at all at other points.

 

[JDJACK]

I'd have to look at the guards to see if they are serrated or not. Non clog from John Deere about 12 years ago cut 50 acres a year. I adjust them to specs in the manual.
Didn't realize the guards could be sharpened, do they need to be removed from machine to complete this?

 

[lastcowboy32]

(quoted from post at 15:09:41 03/31/23) I'd have to look at the guards to see if they are serrated or not. Non clog from John Deere about 12 years ago cut 50 acres a year. I adjust them to specs in the manual.
Didn't realize the guards could be sharpened, do they need to be removed from machine to complete this?

Age will dull the guard edges as well. 12 years is a long time for guards. The metal at the edges gets polished during cutting. Then, a little bit of rust will form during the off season... the next year, that little bit of rust gets polished off, taking some metal with it, repeat that cycle for 12 years and that to the wear from the 50 acres per year.

Best common sense check is to just buy a new guard and compare it to the ones you have on the machine.

I can't imagine how you could sharpen guards on the machine. But the group is full of MacGuyvers... maybe someone has figured it out.

But, the overall philosophy of many of these comments is right on. Sickles depend on scissor action. New sections only provide one half of the equation. You get the best cutting with nice sharp guard edges and sickles that run tight to them.

I replaced all the guards on one of our old Hesston haybines and gained at least one gear of mowing speed (I bought it used, so my only frame of reference is speed that it mowed with when I got it), so it wouldn't surprise me that you could lose a gear as the guards age.

 

[VicS]

Our 1219 has combine guards and sections bolted on. You can't sharpen the guards without making them a lot narrower. But that makes everything cheaper. Like can buy from Shoup and Sloan Express. We use JD sections and guards. There are at least 6 different kinds of guards and sections. But our reel is just good for 5 mph. But if hay is heavy we have to slow down. It's the best sickle bar mower I've ever run! Also the wobble box is same as a 200 series combine head. So easy to find used. Or get new parts

 

[spacechem]

Well, you've answered your own question: [i:d3c0378176]"I changed sickle section and now its not cutting as good" [/i:d3c0378176]

You should use under-serrated sections for cutting green crops. Period.

If you wanna spend time and save pennies, then "sharpen" your (throw-away) guards as some suggest. After you finish that, I'm sure you have a bucket full of nails that need straightening...

If you wanna cut hay, then buy new guards when they wear out.