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Best or the worst - vintage side delivery hay rake?

R

rankrank1

Well-known Member
First and foremost,: I am not trying to start a brand war, but I do have what I hope will be interesting question through the decades of the 1930's, 1940's and early 1950's.

I have been wondering what was considered the best (or the worst) of the vintage old style side delivery hay rakes (i.e. the basket style ones - or in other words the pre-rollerbar types similar to the ones that are still being maded today. (e.g. The old David Bradley's, the John Deere 594's, New Idea's 4 44 45 47, Internationals, other manufactures, etc.).

As many of these rakes will be steel wheeled versions, I am not really concerned about ability to road transport but simply what ones worked the best for raking hay. If a unit also does well as tedder then that is also worth pointing out. If a unit worked well for one type of hay (e.g grass) and poorly for another (e.g alfalfa) then point that out as well.

Lastly feel free to post pics along with your opinions and please let's not turn this into brand war.
 
My Dad and my uncle bought a New Holland side delivery rake new,must have been in the early 50s sometime. The thing was on rubber,3 wheels,2 in back,one in front. The one in front was a castor. Trouble was,it wasn't fastened in there any way. Us kids would tend to turn too short and hook the tongue with the tractor tire and the front wheel would fall out of the socket. That thing would never get my vote for the best.
 
We had a 1950's vintage power driven (PTO) Allis-Chalmers side delivery rake that had a gear box on it, and if I remember correctly, had two forward gears, and a reverse gear for tedding. It was a two wheel rake that hitched to the tractor drawbar. As I recall, it did a pretty good job of raking, but the thing I remember most about it was what a pain in the _____ it was to hook to the tractor, as the hitch was very heavy and it didn't have a jack. I have only seen one or two of them in my 60+ years.
 
I'm still using my John Deere 594. It works as good as it ever did after 60 years, including a lot of them stored in mother natures machine shed. The new styles are easier to use and can run a lot faster, but my old one is still working. Nuff said!!
Paul
 
That was quite a wide rake too wasn't it? For raking big windrows for the AC roto baler? A neighbor had one,had all AC equipment for that matter. I remember shortly after they quit farming and put the farm in the soil bank in the early 60s,Dad called to see if they'd sell it. Art said that thing was the reason they quit farming. Said if they had to farm with junk like that,they'd rather quit.
 
Imstilluseing my dads old JD steel wheel rake. The bull gear on it had worn down in the teeth so much that, finally, the gears attached to the bars started slipping. or at least one of them. I brought it home. welded onto the 2 or so teeth, on the bull gear wehill still on the rake. Quite a bit of a trick, to get it right, greased it heavily and have used it for 30 yrs. A friend gave me a junk Case rake, and as it happened, dads last rake was a case. He didnt like it, I havnt used it, but now I got it and plenty of spares to boot.
 
International horse drawn. We still use it. So much better than the modern Deere rake we had.
 
Yes, it was a ten foot wide rake. Sounds like sour grapes from your neighbor. Borderline farmer if a simple machine would make him quit. Good machine- normally raked hay in high speed, when raking straw with the C, we put the rake in low and the C in third (high) gear. If the windrows got wet, we'd shift into tedder and shake up the windrows. Only repeated breakdown we had was a shear pin in the basket. Hardened pin took care of that. Yes- would have been nicer with a jack on the hitch, but in the 50s, that would be unusual.....stumps and a strong back were the norm.
 
Still using a 1947 David Bradley. It does a great job.I remove one of the crazy wheels and it pulls good down the road that way.Otherwise its a btch to move from farm to farm.

The other old rake I had and really liked was a steel wheel New Idea 4 bar rake. It could tedd hay, in fact that was what tore it up.
 
I just picked up this AC PTO rake on a farm sale a couple of weeks ago.The first hay raking I ever did was for a neighbor in 1961.He had a AC PTO rake pulled by a F-20 Farmall on propane.It did a good job with no breakdowns.His baler was a 116W JD pulled by a 1951 A JD.

AC was very popular in this area so there were lots of AC rakes and AC round balers.David Bradley rakes were also very popular around here and we used one for quite awhile until we got a brand new New Idea rake in the late 1960's.We had an AC round baler.
Mayfield-11.jpg
 
Had an International that had trouble with heavy hay. wouldn't kick the hay out, just make big hay knots that fell out. a New Idea worked good and also would turn in reverse to fluff the hay up. an Oliver with rubber tires worked ok but didn't have enough clearance to pull it over the hay after your done.
 
They were two old bachelor brothers. One had a mail route. They were getting up in years and were probably about as tired of it as I am now,just looking for the straw that breaks the camels back. Most days,a flat tire is about enough to make me call an auctioneer and a realtor.
 
by far the best was a 594 JD, left no hay behind and made a nice fluffy windrow, the worst was the IH, wouldn't do heavy slough hay and wound the windrow up into a rope, what a piece of junk! IH never did make a good rake and if somebody really likes them they probably haven't rabn anything else!I have a 55 and 56 NH hooked to a tandem hitch but wil use the JD for rough ground. never was around an Oliver, MH or NI friends had a Case and I guess it worked ok, Dad hired out when young and said the AC worked good in straw behind a wd45, raked in 4th with the engine slowed up.
 
My Dad had a David Bradley and an IH. We didn"t use the IH near as much as The D.B. Mostly because because the IH ate teeth left and right. We probley used the D.B. 10 times more between 1946 and 1962.
 
I do not know the model number but I grew up on a JD side delivery. It was rubber tired, ground driven, and had these knobs on the hubs to disengage for transport. It was well worn when I started using it in the 80's and 90's. I usually pulled it in 6th and 7th gear behind a JD 3020 (WAY TO FAST). It still works but needs a lot of parts replaced, much slack.

In my opinion, a side delevery type has too many moving parts. Get a big wheel type and be done. Never used anything better for RAKING AND WINDROWING. For "fluffing" or tedding, a PZ cannot be beat.

Charles
 
Do you know what model this is please? Looking for pictures or manuals to see what it originally looked like before I make an offer.

Thanks in advance.
Shawn...
i6487.jpg
 
I believe that is an MM/Cockshutt rake. CR2 MM number I think. Dont know the Cockshutt number for sure.
 
the D.B. rakes were really good as were Olivers with the low wheels and wind guard they had only 4 bars but would make perfect corners in heavy hay when pulled at horse speeds. The worst rakes were the New Ideas and I.H..s where the baskets didn,t raise- only the reels.went up&down .Case made good rakes too.
 
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