Elevator operations

Growing up, we used the old hay grapple forks from the loose hay days to raise baled hay into the barn mow- eight bales at a lift, if stacked right on the wagon. Needed three guys to move well, one to stick, one to drive the lift tractor and one to dump/stack in the mow.

Somewhere along the line, the trolley system wore out and began to dump the load when it hit the top of the track- very dangerous and time wasting. We filled in with a 40' paddle elevator and a lot of carrying.

I located and bought a used tube and chain elevator system, mated with a tube elevator on wheels from the ground. We hung the elevator from the old grapple track and have been loading the mow much more expediantly ever since. I now load almost all of the hay all by myself- throw 30-50 bales on the elevator, stop, run up and stack it and repeat. (yes, I am a stubborn sumbch).

The question in all of this is my method of aligning the drops from the horizontal run of the elevator- I climb up on the tracks and tie the gate open where I want with twine. It would seem there may be some way to open close the gates from the floor, but I can't seem to get the leverage right with twine. Is it just that simple that I am actually doing it right? No big deal when the mow is filled or half full, but that first climb out over the empty floor is a little unerving for a larda$$ like me...

why not get some of those actuators like they use to set the concaves in a combine. If they will move them and hold during threshing they ought to hold for a bale. They could be run from the floor with a switch and wire. You would have all winter while the mow is full to do it. It would be 12 volt. Though you could probably get them in 110 volt.

I think that those are called linear actuators. They are available in 110.