Deere 1209 plugging sickle bad

Was cutting hay tonight and fought the 1209 plugging the sickle. Not heavy hay, first cut came off May 15 but weather and work schedule has kept me from getting it cut until tonight. It's mostly orchardgrass with some bluegrass, red clover, and alfalfa. Clover and alfalfa stems were tough. Hold downs were all tight, not missing any sections standard guards are all in good shape and sharp. Sections are all under-serrated and have some wear but didn't seem like they shouldn't cut fine. Was cutting at 2.5-3mph at 530 rpm pto. My 1650 has a 1600 engine so it won't get to 540 pto due to the differences in governed engine speed (1900 vs 2200(?)). I need to replace the sickle drive belt I think or at a minimum check and adjust tension on it.

I managed to get it all cut but it's not pretty. Any suggestions short of replacing with new sections and stub guards?

Belt slipping and half way cutting sounds like your blade is dull.I can cut faster than that with my New Holland 456 sickle bar mower.

I have plugging problems with my 1207 when the hay is damp near the ground. Try raising the height a little. And set your pickup tines as close to the cutter bar as you can without them hitting.

The sections are too dull for the conditions even though they may not "look like" they are dull. I can remember when the road here was all dairy farms and guys made lots of hay. Walk into any farmer's garage this time of year back then and they would have three or four knife bars that had been rebuilt or were awaiting to be redone. Did not matter if it was New Holland, Hesston, or John Deere.

My problems were dampness, end foldback board not adjusted properly, and crawdad mounds......oh, highly irregular fields with turns in excess of
90 degrees too.

Make sure the ledger plates on the guards do not move side to side. Had a guy this spring complain that his sickle bar mower was clogging up and I found about 10 guards that had the ledger plate that there move and loose so as the sickle bar moved the ledger plates moved with it sop it clogged up

1209 guards didn't come with removable ledger plates

My guess is guards are worn out.

I use the non clog guards on my JD1209, also use the JD adjustable tops on the guards to put pressure on sickle. I cut some hay for a friend which was very heavy mixture of hay and some wild oats. I had trouble in the morning but when it dried out i the afternoon it was fine. Moisture on it made it tough

Dull sickle sections will make the guards plug. Spend the 1-2 dollars a section and cut more hay!!! With the damp ground and high humidity the sickle bar cutters need all the help they can get.

When I was still using a sickle bar type of mower I never went more than one cutting on sections. I usually had 100-120 acres of hay. So replacing the sections cost me less than a dollar an acre. I also replaced the guards every winter. I could keep cutting when the neighbors where plugging.

IMHO - a mower conditioner should be able to cut as fast as any straight sickle bar mower. The video link below shows my pitman driven
MF32 mower slicing through some thick tall grass. 1st gear high range and if I remember right the ground mph is 5ish at 540 PTO speed.

This mower has some new guards, but the old ones, I took a grinder and squared up the ledger to a sharp 90 degree angle. Also pulled the
knife and used a grinding wheel to sharpen the sections. It is amazing what this sickle mower can cut - even in damp conditions, i.e. dark and
dew coming on.

Finally, the sickle sections are in register with the guards - very important and the sections are down on the ledger surface.

I think you can polish what you have - like I did with my sickle mower and do much better without having to buy all new sections and guards.
Eventually you'll need to, but give a refurb a try.

Also if you look at our other YouTube videos, you can see our Hesston 1110 at work. Not going nearly as fast as the sickle mower. The guards
and sickle sections on it were in worse shape than I initially thought. If I speeded up, it wasn't that it would clog, but I'd get a ragged cut and the
hay was so thick I sometimes wondered if it would go through the rollers given the volume. First year out with the Hesston, so before spending
$$$'s on it, wanted to run it and see what we had. It will see a cutterbar refurb this winter.

Good luck,
Bill
Mowing hay

I had an Oliver horse drawn mower, it cut 3
foot high fescue. 6ft bar. My register was
right on and my draft was 3/4 inch forward
and my knifes sat flat on my plates,pulled
with my super A. Someone gave me an old ag
book by John deere from the 50's. I just
followed the adjustment guide.took me a few
days to figure out the draft. Oliver ain't
no deere. I like sickle bars, but I'm not
right in the head.

Funny thing most people running a sickle bar had rather take a beating than replace the sections on the blade which is as you say the one biggest and easiest thing one can
do for their mower to make it cut right.Plus having a very sharp sickle will reduce wear and tear on the rest of the parts on the mower.People that have lots of problems with sickle bars have one thing in common--Dull sections.

I realize sickle mowers have sort of been left in the dust by discbines and haybines. When I bought my MF32 pitman sickle mower, I feared it would be pure misery trying to cut. Our first trial run to see what I had, and it was - constant plugging, what a pain. So we set about sharpening and adjusting the sections down on the ledgers and WOW - what cutting machine. In the video I posted earlier, I'm going 5.3 mph per the manual on the tractor. It seemed like the cutterbar benefitted from the higher speed as grass never had time to stand on the cutterbar, but fell away.

My great grandfather's mowing scythes are still in the barn, he cut these same fields with those. When running the sickle mower on those same fields, all I can think is what a LEAP in technology/productivity it was in the day.

Two things drove me to use a mower conditioner, one was the need for conditioning, the other was higher cutting height. My Hesston is set to cut at 5 inches stubble height.

Bill

Bought a sickle grinder at an auction a week or so back, finally got around to putting a new cord and switch on it. Pulled the haybine out and pulled the sickle out. Touched up all but two sections that were top serrated. Went to Farm King to get some replacements but they don't even carry sickle sections!! Guards either, WTH?

I replaced 6 wear plates that were completely gone and will stop at JD and get some of the JD factory guards to replace a couple that are pretty wore. Should be cutting good Monday afternoon. Bought another 24T baler that I want to use before trying too hard to sell it.