Hi folks -If you're po-folk like me and wondering if you should pick up that old 37 baler at the neighbor's or auction, here's my experience with one. I got it at an auction a few years ago, did a bunch of work on it (I tinker pretty good), and put it into service last season putting up about 300 bales. It is my first baler, so I can't say anything relative to other machines. I knew nothing about balers, but after attending a lot of auctions I saw many older JD's and other brands I don't remember with broken and welded needles. The 37 caught my eye because it didn't, plus it had a narrow enough pickup head (about 5') to fit down my small farm lane. Not the smartest way to choose, but oh well. It was drought here last year, and the field I cut can only charitably be called "mixed native grass" ... bunch of weeds would be closer. So the material ranged from cat-hair fine grass to bunches of sticks (stems of dense stands of weed flowers). The biggest problem I had was getting the feel for setting the bale tension. With a complete greenhorn setting it up and running it, it missed a knot on maybe 6 bales, usually because when the material suddenly got much finer the bale got too tight. Here's what I can tell you: -> GET THE MANUAL. You have NO HOPE of setting the knotters right without it, especially the twine knife position. You have to remove one bolt and swing up the knotter frame to get access. It wouldn't hurt to check the disc and needle timing & clearances on an old machine, but you only need to set them once. Something I didn't know before I worked on it, it has a blocking mechanism to stop the ram if the needle timing is wrong. -> Keep the twine knives sharp! I had to remove my old hand-sharpen type to do a good job, using a small fine-grit stone ... I think a woman's diamond dust nail file would be ideal. But there is a newer version that uses a small replaceable razor blade. -> Check the twine disk cleaners. My few misses were always on one side, and after time the knots on that side didn't look good, though they held fine. Twine and hay bits kept building up between the twine discs. I just today finally discovered a defective cleaner, which I'm replacing. Looks like some good-old-boy tried to adjust it with a sledgehammer and broke off a vital portion, then he just stuffed what was left back in place. I did notice that the knotters seem to have been updated somewhat ... they had the taper lock & pinhole for disc timing, plus the twine keeper springs. The twine was what was in the baler when I got it: who knows how many years old and not very good ... "Big Un Roll of Sisal" ... it varied in thickness a lot, more than 2:1, and the misses always happened on a thin spot, but again only when the bale was very tight. Even overly tight bales were no problem on the normal parts of the twine. I set the twine tensioner in the twine chest for a modest pull needed (maybe 5#?) to draw twine and never fooled with it again. This year I bought new, better quality twine. In moving, stacking & unstacking the bales, I never had a knot untie no matter how poor they looked on the one side. I never had lopsided bales, from too loose to too tight they were always straight. If the bales were loose the machine tended to make them longer by a few inches, so watch the bale tension. Once I got the tension in the right range, I didn't need to fool with it unless there was a massive change in material. And I found it is good to keep the machine fed at a consistent rate. I changed gears on the tractor depending on the density of the windrow. It seemed to like being well-fed best, but not overfed ... listen to your engine and if it loads up noticeably when the ram goes into the chamber, go to a lower gear (don't throttle back, because that changes nothing). Bottom line, it did the job without any real trouble, but then I did take care to make sure everything was adjusted right before I took it to the field. As it came from auction it would not have worked worth diddley. I'd say to not take anything for granted; if there's an adjustment, check it! And know where every grease zerk is and grease it on schedule. I keep a small greasegun in a box in the twine chest, along with a few basic tools for minor adjustments like bale length. Too easy to put off a greasing if you have to go back to the barn. In checking it out before use this year, aside from the broken cleaner and resharpening the twine knives, all the settings were the same as I set them at the start of last year. So I'm guessing once you get it set up correctly it holds OK, and this thing has clearly seen its share of field time. I must say it does a good job of picking up the windrow, even when it's thin ... leaves pretty much nothing behind. On the other hand the mechanism for folding the draw tongue for transport is clumsy to use. My only serious complaint would be that parts are a tad steep, at least by my shoestring standards. But then I don't know if they're any worse than for other older balers, either. If anyone knows of a "Chuck's Super Discount Implement Parts" or something, let me know! Bye ..... ... Tony :-)
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