Balers

Self propelled Balers and other stuff. The Allis and New Holland pictures were taken at the Edgar Wi Steam show and the self propelled Balers and rake were taken on NY rt. 20 east of Waterloo NY.

Neighbors had a hay loader just like that one that they used to load AC Rotobales. Dad had a New Holland 77 just like that one. Caught fire in the field and burned up. Never saw self propelled balers like those. They'd be OK as long as somebody else was handling the finished product.

They had a big New Holland Bale Wagon picking the bales up. My uncle had two of those AC balers one had to stop to kick out a bale and the other one didn't If I remember right it had one pick-up above the other, but that was 55 yrs ago. My cousin came in for lunch one day while my Uncle was baling, said" Pa's down there swearin like a pirate. I think they use those Freeman balers out in the west.

Like those self propelled balers. Never saw any quite like that. Have seen the Uni-Machine, and a couple others out of the mid '60's, not impressive. Open platform riding the baler didn't seem like a good plan!

The picture of the New Holland balers brought back a lot of memories mostly not good. Dad would use the pick up baler as a stationary machine. The hay was put in shocks. Dad would bring the hay to the baler with his buck rake. I would fork hay into the baler along with someone else, until I thought my arms would fall off. Towards the end of Dad's hay growing years he would use the baler as it was intended, with the hay being raked in rows. We still had to load the hay on the truck. As hard as I thought it was I would like to be able to go back and spend a day doing it again with Dad. Stan

Yep, Freeman dominated the alfalfa areas of the west until big bales came in. Still see a lot of them on "small" squares- if you can call 3 string, 120# bales "small". They were the first to be able to make the 100# plus bales tight enough to be hauled on semis without loads shifting.

I remember a neighbor of my uncle using one of those New Holland 77 baler with the Wisconsin v-4 engine. They pulled it with a John Deere R and took the belt off the baler and belted the Wisconsin engine to the R to start the darn thing, and it was never shut off until the last bale was on the wagon. My brother had a loader like the one on the Allis C, but he used it on a Ford flat bed truck. He stacked and had one of his kids drive, worked pretty good.

Never have seen a Freeman baler, but a friend had a roto. Easy to stack, pain to put on a wagon, and the only one I have ever seen used. My first baler was a 77, identical to the one in the picture, with a VE4. What a pain. If we sheared a shear bolt, we had to shut the engine down to replace it. Then, the thing wouldn't start again until it cooled down, or we threw a bucket of ice on it. We finally figured out how we could hook a belt from a MF mower over the engine sheave to the mower drive sheave, drop the mower lower on the three point and start the Wisconsin by removing the outer drive belt (the 77 had four). The other nasty point of it was the 70 or 80 pound bale it made, and it was not adjustable. I did find a double-earred cam to make the bales smaller by half. So, we ended up going from a baler that made bales that were killers to pick up, stack on a wagon and have to handle again in the barn, to a small bale that was nice to handle, but impossible to stack on a wagon or in the barn. I gave a guy $100 for it, and it went to an auction in Lancaster county where some Amish guy bought it for $500. I was happy to see that old machine go...

I had one of thoes balers also,and it would never fail to start,very seldom missed a bale

jimmy

I knew the Edgar pics looked familiar, live just a little ways from there. Thanks for the pics

If there were a thrower on the self propelled baler with a hitch for a wagon, that would be pretty neat! Just the sp baler and wagon.

That's not that far from me, I live 3 miles off rt 20 the other way, neat pics, I think my fil said Freeman made old hay loaders or something, the horse drawn ones. Im not sure thought, I'd have to ask him.

my uncle had one of those new holland 77.
sometimes it would kick a bale out as long as the wagon was wide.
if the blasted thing quit for some reason it wouldn't start. his had an electric on it as i remember also a crank. once it backfired on him lifted him of his feet. i don't know why he didn't get his arm broke. he had a sore arm for several days afterwards.
we were done baling hay for the rest of that day.

Nice pics - thanks for posting them. I handled a few thousand of the little AC Rotobales. They weren't bad after you learned how to grab them. They kinda stacked themselves. Never saw a Rotobaler that you didn't have to stop while it "gave birth" to a bale, like one of the posters mentioned. I always thought that was their downfall, but the modern round balers work that way too, of course, but with a larger quantity, and fewer stops. Nice pics!

In 1958 AC made 1500 #10 balers- they were the ones with a recirculating conveyor on top of the normal conveyer, thus no need to stop wheel motion. BUT...it did not work well, maybe ok in light windrows. Anyway, AC converted many back to the oroginal design. They skipped Roto-Baler mfg in 61 and 62, then resumed and built until 1974. Total production from 1947-1974 was 77,700 balers. Secret to making a good bale is to make a uniform double windrow, secret to stacking on a wagon is about a one foot high side/end board. Dad built two bale loaders, one mounted on a WC, the other was ground driven, pulled by any tractor.

Another view- maybe about 1957-58. That"s me on the wagon. Front wheel and disc rotated the bale into the loader if you drove correctly. Dad made bale hooks out of horse rake teeth, one 3 feet long for loading, before he made the bale loader- could stand on the wagon and fish them up while I drove.

Great pictures jms -

LOVE that loader - it's inspired me... Might have to build one of those myself.