I am looking for a small baler i currently have a b47 international but its a bit slow i have seen a new holland 387 for sale average condition £950 are they any good is there a good speed to them,can anyone recommend something different thats good for the same sort of money?
I've a feeling the 387 made 16"x18" bales rather than the usual 14"x18" size. Fine if they are for your own use, possibly would make selling them harder as would be heavier (and you'd get less bales/acre, which isn't such a good thing if you sell by the bale :cry
ive had a nightmare season with a new holland , bales all shapes ,strings different lengths , ive been advised to get a bamford bx 9 but they hard to find now , two in ireland
Up the dosh and get welger you wont regret itOriginally Posted by Welger
I have never used one, but a neighbouring farmer used to have one, apparently if the crop was not fit, it would wrap around the auger, it was a sure sign of when the dew was starting to settle, aparently David Brown balers had the same issue...A B47 is getting long in the tooth now but it was a very quick baler in it's day. How much have you got to do ? 300-400 bales an hour was easy enough when they were set up right. You must have the ram up tight and have both the ram knife and the stationary knife pretty sharp but that's the same on any small baler.
If you have lots of "notches" on the two knives then sharpen the notches.
Is the feed auger and all the area around it nice and shiny ? If it isn't sand all the rubbish off an don't forget to clean and oil everything, including the complete chamber, when you've finished for the season. That material needs to fly up the pickup reel, under the auger and into the chamber almost on it's own without the packers and it will do if everything is nice and shiny and it's a warm and sunny day.
Is this true Scooby?
The old NH balers can work right with a bit of fiddling around but an average 387 I might give a miss. Agree that the models ending 8* have a bigger chamber which is not to everyone's liking.
Ditto that.
Got rid of the B47 and got myself an AP530. It may be old and it may be rusty, but it does an excellent job.
I have learnt that any baler is only as good as the person that sets it up and looks after it.
I found an older chap who had spent his life setting up and repairing the things, a day spent with him going through the baler was money well spent.
There really not that complicated just you got to know what you are looking for
Also Claas baler parts are astronomically priced and it took them 6 days last summer to get me a billhook for a Markant 65. I wasn't impressed.
That's spot on too. We have one. They make bales that sort the men from the boys.I've a feeling the 387 made 16"x18" bales rather than the usual 14"x18" size. Fine if they are for your own use, possibly would make selling them harder as would be heavier (and you'd get less bales/acre, which isn't such a good thing if you sell by the bale :cry
Can fair shift when you're baling though!
IF you can lay your hands on a IH445D in good nick go for it, quite simply the best baler IH ever made IMHO. Only problem was they dint make them for very long !
Is it more of a case of the first baler that IH realised other manufacturers were doing better than them and started stealing knotters off John DeereIF you can lay your hands on a IH445D in good nick go for it, quite simply the best baler IH ever made IMHO. Only problem was they dint make them for very long !
I totaly agree, I served my time on IH440 knotters & once you had learned the baler they were never a problem to sort out, you are quite right, more often than not issues were with ram or needles & not the knotters !
IH sold these balers in the thousands, they couldnt have been all that bad
Scooby, I know the problem you are on about, its called material interference, where straw, hay get over the top of the ram & interferes with how the string is layed into the twine disc's, part of the problem was the knotter breast plate bowing up as well, you could put a large block of wood onto it & belt it back down
Claas Markant !! only 1 chain rest are cogs
Fast baler cheaper than a welger
Gapples, I hadn't heard about the problem until it happened to me and I only fixed it by trial and error. As far as the bowing of the breast plate is concerned I once had a B47 that got as it just wouldn't make a decent bale, no matter how slow you fed it. One day I was at a demo. of the 523 ? (IVT ?)and I mentioned it to an IH engineer from Donny and he said that the baler had probably gone "bell-mouthed" around the knotter part of the chamber.
So I sold it but then reckoned up what the baler had done for me (I was contracting with it and so everything was recorded) and it transpired that the machine had done 198,000 bales. I was annoyed that I had sold it when I did. I wish I had done the other 2,000 bales !!
Happy days.
Scooby
I miss those days when I filled my van every year with all the parts I needed to fix knotter faults, I spent weeks on end virtualy doing nothing else but it was good fun & you always got caught out by a new fault every now & then, happy days like you say
When we ran a Markant (older chain drive type admittedly) we found the local Claas dealers were a waste of time and expensive for parts so we used to bypass them for Morris Corfield who were (and still are IIRC) a Harvest Centre and thus are subsidised to have a considerably larger parts stock than would ordinarily be the case. For example IIRC a needle which MSF wanted £150 for and would have to order in was on the shelf in Corfields for £89. Admittedly this is 15-20 years ago but small balers have if anything enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in that time due to the horse market.I have learnt that any baler is only as good as the person that sets it up and looks after it.
I found an older chap who had spent his life setting up and repairing the things, a day spent with him going through the baler was money well spent.
There really not that complicated just you got to know what you are looking for
Also Claas baler parts are astronomically priced and it took them 6 days last summer to get me a billhook for a Markant 65. I wasn't impressed.
Great days for sure, I'm oop north of you by quite long way, Newcastle area, strange how those little balers used to do ( in some cases ) 10's of 1000's of bales per year !
Mobiles lol, may have been handy but also a pest, I knew where every phone box in a 30 mile radius was though
Guess those day are consigned to the history books now though !!
Gapples, I reckon you & I could have a good old yarn over a pint
We could sure tie a few knots along the way I reckon
You can have the pints on me if you would like to look over my baler whilst you are at it and pass on some of your wisdomGapples, I reckon you & I could have a good old yarn over a pint
Did Claas balers as well for my sins, although never had as many out in the area as IH ones, whats your problem ?You can have the pints on me if you would like to look over my baler whilst you are at it and pass on some of your wisdom
Did Claas balers as well for my sins, although never had as many out in the area as IH ones, whats your problem ?
A Claas baler
Interesting reading Scooby's and Gapples comments, reminds me of many hours in field particullarly in Ireland solving baler issues and the best memories are of the refreshments provided by the farmers wives on a job well done!!!
Crop breathback causing twine disolacement and a mis-tye was discovered by a collegue using a video camera. when the film was shown slowed down we were able to detect twine bounce on the twine over the chromed twine finger on the breast plate , which caused the twine to be displaced from the finger, so when the billhook rotated it got hold of only 1 twine causing a mis-tye.
Re: Small Baler
In the mid 60's used a Inter B55W? wire tying baler with an Armstrong Siddeley twin diesel engine.
Didn't even try to figure out how it tied but got £2 bonus for doing 2000 bales in a day - didn't get that very often and never behind a 8ft 6in combine,
Getting the bonus was a rare event - about 3 or 4 times a harvest but we often baled 1500 plus which was good for the boss - contractor being paid by the bale.
To do 2000 you needed a big field of dry wheat straw behind a 12 ft combine. No short strawed crops in those days.
Limiting factor was usually tractor speed caused by rough ground and driver fatigue. (No meal breaks).
Nuffield was the best towing tractor, more comfortable seat and better driving position than the Major and much better steering. Had one less gear than the Major but a bit more power.
Which parts mainly?
Still run a 440 ourselves and ususally gets a run through with a 100 or so straw bales each year.
Like Scooby's one it has been contracting and is nearly see-through in places at this stage!
Down @ Ferns with Murphey Bros and in the Cork area with Lucy & O,Connel ?? and later Lynch & McCarthy, Rooney Bros @ Naul and Derry Moody @ Carlow and Fitzpatricks Garage @ Monasterevin amongst many others. .Always used to travel with a representative of the distributor in Dublin, J H Saville @ Santry. The guy was Tom Dooley. Spent many hours with Tom driving around the South
In the North the distributor was Saville Tractors @ Dunmurry, Belfast and i usualy visited the dealers with their tecnician David McKillop.
Used to deal a bit with Murphys', still get what few spares we need from Fitzpatrick's - a very honourable dealer.
my uncle in a new holland small baler aholic
his main baler (i think) is a 276 ( the one with the grand piano over the pick up reel)
good baler nice bales no hassle
Started with B47 on Leyland 384 , then IH 440 , then NH 370 , then JD 456 , next up was NH 940 and finally Claas markant 65 which I still have but she has been problematic over the last few years so the workload is low.
With all those behind me you'd think I was an expert but alas no , they can still frustrate me!
The best? A hard one ..... but I was really impressed with the 370 probably was my favorite, certainly kept the longest. But some NH models are terrible.
Which are the NH small balers to avoid.
TIA,
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