New Holland Super 66 bales

Just went through all of the adjustments on my baler from the manual. One needle and twine disc was way off and the wadboard was rubbing on the metal floor of the baler and not going in far enough. Stationary knife was rounded over and a few other minor things were out of adjustment.

Made a huge difference in bale/tying quality. Made nice solid consistent tight bales. Used it yesterday and it only one bale fell out loose with one side of the strings still mostly attached to the next bale.


Couple questions about adjustments:

1) the "knife" on the plunger has no edge profile. It's just flat like a peice of flatstock, manual says sharpen the knives....not sure how I should sharpen it if at all. I was guessing it functioned like a sickle mower, plunger was guide and stationary was a sickle section for the cutting action.

2)any tips on how to sharpen the twine knifes on the knotters? I tried to get in there with a flat file but there's barely any clearance at any part of the cycle. I see there riveted on and I can't see a way to pull only the knife arm out of the knotters.

3) the tops and bottoms of my bales (string sides) are kind of ragged looking, knife edge side is perfect and the side that is just pressed has a tuft the Suze of a good handful sticking out if the corner of every bale. Just wondering what makes those sides fluffy? I Removed The Hay Stops from The Bottom Of The Chamber Because They Were Broken And Cutting Twine Every Once In A while.


All in all it makes a fine bale but I'm selling my hay this year instead of using it so I'm trying to make the bakes as perfect as I can.


Thanks, Daniel

Not familiar with the 66 - but can tell you what I think I know based on my New Holland 68:

"1) the "knife" on the plunger has no edge profile. It's just flat like a peice of flatstock, manual says sharpen the knives....not sure how I should sharpen it if at all. I was guessing it functioned like a sickle mower, plunger was guide and stationary was a sickle section for the cutting action."

This sounds opposite of my 68 in that the knife on the plunger is a sharp angle and the stationary is blunt. IMHO - you should "sharpen" the blunt knife to give you a nice 90 degree surface to the cutting knife. Kind of like you said on a sickle section and the ledger on a guard.

"2)any tips on how to sharpen the twine knifes on the knotters? I tried to get in there with a flat file but there's barely any clearance at any part of the cycle. I see there riveted on and I can't see a way to pull only the knife arm out of the knotters."

On my 68, each knotter assy is held down about the knotter shaft by a bolt. Remove that bolt and the knotters rotate up and over. From there, you have easier access to the twine knife to sharpen. I use a small flat file. One word of caution, when rotating the knotters up, the twine knife/arm can move. Be careful as you can get nicked.

"3) the tops and bottoms of my bales (string sides) are kind of ragged looking, knife edge side is perfect and the side that is just pressed has a tuft the Suze of a good handful sticking out if the corner of every bale. Just wondering what makes those sides fluffy? I Removed The Hay Stops from The Bottom Of The Chamber Because They Were Broken And Cutting Twine Every Once In A while."

I think the ragged look can be a function of bale density - but sometimes is just there, hard to explain. The tighter the bale is compressed (more dense) in the bale chamber, the more likely it is to be less ragged - I think. The photo shows a bale from my JD348 and that was one tight bale - others can be more ragged top to bottom. As to the hay stops - IMHO, they should go back-in. If they are spring loaded hay dogs, you really need them to keep the hay from springing back as you make the next flake of hay. As the hay springs back, all kinds of things can happen from knotter troubles to banana bales. I agree 100% that if selling hay looks is important. Sometimes looks is more important to the buyer than the actual quality of the bale - go figure.

Good luck,
Bill

2X what bill said about hay stops. If they are the same as JD "hay dogs" it won't tie a heavy bale without them.

Need to get all parts back in and good and sharp cutting points. Only then can you start to work on apperance.

Thanks for the in depth reply bill, I'll try rotating my knotters tommorow to get at the twine knife.

The things I took out are not the hay dogs with springs. Those are all there and function. I took out 2 of 4 wedge shaped peices of metal on the bottom of the bale chamber. They look like a peice of angle iron and new holland calls them hay stops in the manual. Going to look into getting new ones the old ones are unusable broken in half with sharp edges that were cutting twine every once in a while.


I'm not sure why appearance matters so much to people, myself I like loose bales when feeding out I can grab one side of the twine and flip the bale open and I could care less what the bales look like, but I could sell bales of goldenrod if it was a perfect bale haha.

(quoted from post at 18:24:47 06/28/16) Thanks for the in depth reply bill, I'll try rotating my knotters tommorow to get at the twine knife.

The things I took out are not the hay dogs with springs. Those are all there and function. I took out 2 of 4 wedge shaped peices of metal on the bottom of the bale chamber. They look like a peice of angle iron and new holland calls them hay stops in the manual. Going to look into getting new ones the old ones are unusable broken in half with sharp edges that were cutting twine every once in a while.


I'm not sure why appearance matters so much to people, myself I like loose bales when feeding out I can grab one side of the twine and flip the bale open and I could care less what the bales look like, but I could sell bales of goldenrod if it was a perfect bale haha.

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Poorly shaped bales are like leaving holidays in your field. The guys in the coffee shop will be talking and wondering why you can't make your baler work right. Another better reason is that well made bales stack better and go through a thrower better than loose miss-shapen ones. Another reason is a baler that is making good shaped tight bales is less likely to quit tying.