Hay Crimper

Texasmark1

Well-known Member
Got tired of the sickle bar haybines or whatever you choose to call them; sickle bar, reel rake, crimping rollers and discharge. The older JD name for a good one was the JD 1209.

Well things have changed and now I have the cutter, all I want to do is crimp the fat stems. Looking for a crimper

Located in N. TX.

Any help?

Thanks,
Mark
 
The only crimper worth its salt are close to or full cutterbar width,..the rest are worthless.
 
Yeah, well dad had one when I was a kid. I never was so glad to see the hind end of something go down the driveway. That was over 40 years ago and I ain't going back.
 
There was a newly made crimper advertised in the Lancaster Farming paper last week. Might start looking there.

I had a NH crimper, a 404 IIRC. Never worked worth a hoot.
 

I spent a lot of time with a pocket knife under a Cunningham as a kid. Now it seems that people are looking for them to recon after their mower-conditioner.
 
Not that it really matters, but wasn't the NH 404 considered a "crusher" and not a crimper. If I remember correctly (and I may not because I'm talking around 1966-69) it had a smooth steel upper roller and a rubber lower roller with spiral grooves running across the length of the roller. The New Ideas of the day were crushers with steel rollers that meshed with each other and actually crimped the hay.

The 404 was a great improvement over just cutting with a sickle bar and letting it lay until dry enough to rake and bale, but it had to be adjusted just right to prevent wrapping the hay around the rollers and plugging up, Whereas the New Ideas our neighbors had and we borrowed a few times before we had the 404 were great with no problems plugging. (As far as I remember any way) :)
LaVern
P.S. Like show crop above stated, I remember spending a lot of time under that 404 with a jack knife too.
LJS
 
look for a New Idea model 571, if I recall right, one rubber, 1 steel roll. The NH 404, was similar, but not as good, IMHO. Smuckers welding will pay for older crushers, they rebuild them with splined metal rolls, making them crimpers. They are the ones that have the ad in lancaster farming.
 
We got a New Idea crimper we use for fluffing grass in the swamp after a rain or whatever. Dad also ran some of our 4th crop through it 2 days after cutting as our haybine is a 14' cut and has a 4' crimper. It did make a difference in drydown on that stuff. What we didn't crimp was a little tougher, but it still made good hay.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
I'll tell you this much- if I had a choice between a crimper and a tedder, there wouldn't be a moments hesitation- go for the tedder.
 
I am with Bret 4207 get a tedder we had a JD when I was growing up spent more time under it with a knife then anything else and the hay never dried any quicker then if we just cut it with the just the cutter and left dry on its own
 
I have a tedder but that doesn't help to let the moisture out of the
stems (which crimping does) and regardless of how you plant and
cut, there are plenty.

Thanks,
Mark
 
(quoted from post at 06:15:00 09/14/12) I have a tedder but that doesn't help to let the moisture out of the
stems (which crimping does) and regardless of how you plant and
cut, there are plenty.

Thanks,
Mark

What are you cutting with? A sickle bar mower or something?
 
Drum mower. I got sick and tired of fighting sickles and all their
hangups; must have had half a dozen over the years, and a disc
moco costs too much money (I have a small operation). Besides, I
don't like the mechanics of the disc cutting drive system. Too many
parts to wear out and housing to break....every used one I ever saw
had lots of braze welding done to the under side.

The drum is a walk in the park.

Mark
 
Drum mower. I got sick and tired of fighting sickles and all their
hangups; must have had half a dozen over the years, and a disc
moco costs too much money (I have a small operation). Besides, I
don't like the mechanics of the disc cutting drive system. Too many
parts to wear out and housing to break....every used one I ever saw
had lots of braze welding done to the under side.

The drum is a walk in the park.

Mark
 
Since you already have drum mower and tedder then I would be on lookout for an old Meyer stand alone conditioner crimper. The Meyer has a unique pick up tine system to actually feed the hay into the 2 rollers so it supposedly does not miss already cut hay and rarely if ever clogs. Many claim it to be the best crimper that they have ever used. (For the record I have never actually used a Meyer but the design does make sense to me as compared to other crimper only designs that rely on the rollers to pick up the hay).

The bad news is that the old Meyer crimpers are not always easy to find. I only found 1 of them back when I was toying with the idea of a stand alone crimper. Still kicking myself for not driving the 3 hours to purchase it as the price was even less than scrap value.

I ended up going with a Hesston 1120 haybine type cutter/conditioner (or moco) and do not have any regrets really as I can do cutting and crimping in one trip over the field instead of traveling 2 trips over field. Have no issues with sickle type cutter bar for a small operator like me. Cheap and easy to keep operational and works decent with the low hp antique junk tractors that I primarily use.
 
Those Meyer units never did amount to anything, that is why there were not many of them made. I know of one setting in a scrap yard run be a neighbor that also farms. Think he tried it before a haybine. That sounds like a fairly heavy crop so the last model crimper John Deere made should work good for you, that was the No. 22. Wasn't as tight of a crimp as the earlier Deere units and did not do the job in Alfalfa like the earlier models, the No. 1 and the No. 21 but with your thick stems and heavy crop should be ideal. No problems with the crimpers picking up the crop. The problen was with the crushers that did not have as agressive a bottom roller. Started out with a either Yetter or Cuningham, forgot for sure but was a borrowed unit. Did not work. Next was a New Holland that Uncle had out on trial, so poor the dealer took it back and brought out a McCormick No. 2 I think and both my Uncle and us used it for several years. Bought our own a John Deere No. 1 crimper and it did the best conditioning of any unit I have used, Only top roll drove and it busted the bottom roll, got rid of it. Bought a Allis crusher and it worked decent but did not gain the 2 days in red clover the Deere did. Found a Deere No. 22 crimper and bought it but on by that time alfalfa it would not set tight enough to do much good, did great at picking up the crop tho, went back to using the AC. Would have loved to have had a Deere No. 21 that was very simular to the No. 1 but both rolls drove and was a lot quiter. Ended the haymaking in 1981 with a Case 555 Mower conditioner that was the same as the Heston PT-10 and was a 9' unit. Have used all types of bar mowers and from what I see now would not even consider a drum or disk mower, look at any field and the cut is terible. But the Deere No. 22 should do you a good job behind that mower provided you can get it to lay the crop in the same width swath as a 7' bar mower. They are all made for a 7' cut mower and if your new mower is only a 6 foot model then you will have trouble, a wider unit that you can set for a 6' swath the same as the 7' bar mower would make it should work ok.
 
(quoted from post at 01:58:36 09/16/12) Those Meyer units never did amount to anything, that is why there were not many of them made...

Well not to argue with our resident vintage hay rake guru but I will a bit this time. The haybines (or moco's) pretty much obsoleted all crimpers so you really do not see many of any manufacturer still left around now - most have went to the scrapper.

My guess for not seeing many of the Meyer units was not that they did not work well, but that it had more to do with the pick up assembly adding to the cost of the unit making it slightly more expensive than all other brands of crimpers that lacked the pick up assembly . Farmers back then almost always bought what was cheapest not what was best. (No better example of this than Allis Chalmers tractor sales in the 1950's based really only on being cheaper than all others. I do not think anyone would argue that Allis's were better although I do love Allis engines but the rest of the package well.....enough said on this tangent).

Please find me one post on any board "from someone who has actually used the Meyer" that it was not one fine crimper. I have not used one either, but the few user's that have posted all claim it to be the best crimper that they have ever used. Do not think you will find those same praising claims with the Cunningam's or any other brands for that matter.[u:c8fcf1ee4b][/u:c8fcf1ee4b]
 
Hi All,
I have to agree somewhat with rankrank 1 on the Meyers. Of course I will say that my recollections are from 46 or so years ago, but I do recall as a mid-teenager, that the Meyers were few and far between in our neck of the woods, and that they were more expensive, but they were somewhat of a "wish we could afford one of them" items because they did do a great job over smooth fields, rough fields, with the direction of the cut, or against the direction of the cut and across the swathes if need be, and still picked it [u:352cf7737e]ALL[/u:352cf7737e] up and conditioned the hay [u:352cf7737e]ALL[/u:352cf7737e] the hay. Now I admit we never owned one and never had the opportunity to run one, but that was the concensus at the time. I also stress that I was in the 14 - 17 year old range and may have been somewhat influenced by my peers of the day :wink: .
LaVern
 
Neighbor across the road had bought a new one, only had it part of a year because it would not work. Only seen possibly a couple of others in junk condition here in dairy country. Have seen a lot in my 69 years but a lot I haven't seen either.
 

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