Positioning of bale chute on a non, thrower baler.

Good morning from Central New York, where we might be able to bale again...someday.

Also, I feel for the midwest, I can't imagine what they are going through with planting right now.

In the meantime, I've gathered up some scrap metal and I want to modify the chute on our NH276 so that we can bale directly onto our flatbed wagons, as opposed to picking bales up off of the ground.

Can anybody share some dimensions with me? How far from the end of the bale chamber should the front of the wagon be?
Should the chute actually reach past the front of the wagon and up onto the deck, or is that a recipe for a bent chute? If not, how far short of the deck should it end, while allowing a reasonable reach for a person on the deck with a hay hook?

It seems that taking the wagon into a dip in the field, especially while turning...would not be a good idea. Wouldn't that jam the chute into the wagon?

Help me save my back

Thanks in advance for any tips.

We use that system to bale behind an IH 47. the chute we have can hold two bales, one flat one up the incline. ours is set to just about the height of the wagon deck give or take a couple inches, and to with in about 4-6 inches to edge.

turning away from the pick up we kick the chute up to prevent it twisting into the wagon deck, if turning into the pickup the chute turns out and away from wagon. If there is good chance of catching we kick the chute up....but took it through some hilly ground (wagon still going down, baler gong up, hitch pin driven into ground) without issue.

Though this is only how ours is set, you personally may want it higher and longer so it hangs over deck more or the other way around (shorter so it safely slides under)...just have to play with it till it seems right.set a bale on it next to a wagon and see how the pull up feels.

Ours was a New Holland 66 with a two piece chute. Too many years to remember the lengths. But we kept it so it was over the front of the bed by a foot so it would not do as you are worried about. One other thing is if you have it far enough in front of bed it cannot do that the bale could fall of the end in front of the bed of the wagon or if you were to try to reach for pulling one up you could actually slip off the front of the bed between bed and bale chute and get killed by wagon running over you. One time we did get chute cought under bed floor and lifted floor. But we had that baler from 55 to 78 and that was the only time for anything like that. Had to change position of hitch-length every time we changed wagons for different length toungs. 78 went to thrower after 3 of us got overcome with heat the previous year and it was not only old guys but a 16 year old boy was one of us that was overcome with the heat. So be carefull in hot weather.

I use a 273 with the two piece chute. We have a couple of dips in our field where it can catch the under the wagon bed. Actually had it lift the front of the wagon off the ground one time. SWMBO drives and I stack but she could never get the hang of where to stop so I could clear and lift the chute. If I timed it right I could pull the bale and pick up the chute till we crossed but she would either stop well short of the dip or after the baler bottomed out and the chute was already under the wagon. Put a brand new second section of the chute one year and the very first round it hooked the wagon and bent. I gave up and started dividing the field when I mowed to avoid it. I like the keep the first section flat with the bale chamber and angle the second section to about a foot above the deck. If you angle the first too much it will bend the bales as they come out.

Don't have any dimensions as we sold that baler and haven't added a second section to the 270 yet.
We like to have the second chute to extend around 6 inches onto the wagon flat and set it around 6 inches or more above the bed on flat ground.
On uneven ground when the baler goes down and the wagon raises the bed will lift the chute, but if the chute is to short it can drop under the edge of the bed, when the baler comes back up and the wagon goes down the chute will catch under the beds floor and damage up the chute.
We had one wagon with a longer tongue that the chute barely reached, baler dropped into a small drain in the field, when it came back up we spend about a half hour straightening the chute and repairing broken chains.

When I used to do that we would keep the chute about a foot ahead of the wagon bed, with the first chute out of the baler flat and the second one angled up maybe 30 degrees. Then I
would use a hay hook to grab each bale once it was 1/3 to 1/2 of its length over the back of the rear chute and sticking up in the air, and pull it onto the wagon.
Zach

(quoted from post at 06:46:50 06/16/19)
Don't have any dimensions as we sold that baler and haven't added a second section to the 270 yet.
We like to have the second chute to extend around 6 inches onto the wagon flat and set it around 6 inches or more above the bed on flat ground.
On uneven ground when the baler goes down and the wagon raises the bed will lift the chute, but if the chute is to short it can drop under the edge of the bed, when the baler comes back up and the wagon goes down the chute will catch under the beds floor and damage up the chute.
We had one wagon with a longer tongue that the chute barely reached, baler dropped into a small drain in the field, when it came back up we spend about a half hour straightening the chute and repairing broken chains.

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We currently have two wagons with very, very different length tongues. I think it will be worth the effort to cut the long one to match the short one.

It would seem that an hour or two of torching and welding could save multiple times that in trouble later on.

Baled on Uncles farm with a John Deere 14T baler, first section was flat, second at about 25-30* angle, chute was 6-8 inches short of the wagon bed.
My Uncle bought a third wagon that the local blacksmith lengthened the tongue on on so they were all the same. Used a bale hook to snag the bale.
On rare occasions when turning a 90* corner the bale got too far to reach and dropped to the ground, but it was rare. Chute being short of the wagon
bed didn?t have to worry about getting hung up under the bed.

When the neighbor baled for us it was already set for the wagons. I think the first or bottom section was about 1 or 2 links above level. then the second or top section was set to reach the wagon over the front of the bed. About 6 inches above the floor with about 6 inches of floor under the chute. I think these are right been over 30 years since we idiot cubed hay.
Cory has it about right you will just have to try it. Hook it altogether and drive around your yard and see how it works and what length works for you. Remember you can except for corners and end rows let the bale come up the chute a bit more for taller people and such. Length of bale will affect all of this too.
If your planning on doing a lot of bales why not look into a grapple and use a loader to load and unload. No back work.

I use a chute out the back of my balers back to the wagons.
Tongue Distance from drawbar pin to the wood of the wagon flat is 52 inches. I measured 3 wagons, all the same.

On my NH276 the 1st chute is 36" level, out the back 0f the bale chamber, 2nd chute is 32" and ramps up at a steep angle.
The chute should be at the edge of the wagon or a couple inches over the edge. Use a hay hook! You do not want a stacker reaching out into space and falling under the wagon. This way if the baler gets ahead of the stacker it pushes the bales onto the wagon. Set the chute chains to hold the end of the chute 8" to 1ft above the deck, to handle dips and turns.

I also have a chute on my old NH270 backup baler. 1st chute is 36" level, second chute is a piece off of a junk baler . It is 48 inches long. It works fine but puts the bale farther back on the wagon.

You will need to teach your stacker to pay attention and yell if you have interference, don't wait until we break the chute, while he looks at the clouds and talks on his cell phone...no joke.
I took some pictures will try to send them later.

NH 276 bale chute, bent, welded, rusty...but it works.

According to the New Holland parts listing the chute that comes with the wagon hitch is 48" long.

You want to be able to do this!

I made the extension for the shoot out of a piece of
scrap from a old hay elevator

My silly phone was running out of power. What I wanted to tell you was, that if you dolt a piece on to the end of your bale shoot, that will get the bales near enough to the wagon is all you need. When you look at the picture of the side view, you can see a chain on each side of the extension. By making the chains longer or shorter, you can keep the end of the shoot from coming into contact with the wagon top.

I?ve always had the chute a foot or two above the rack floor, and a foot or so over the rack. The chute can rub against the rack floor at times, no big deal.

You have to watch going through real ditch type dips, over field approaches, etc. if the chute falls below the deck and comes back up that can be bad.

As well turning right the chute will move away from the rack, turning left the chute will go over the rack more, it could get into hay stacked to the edge. It is up to the
tractor driver to know and work with this, make it work out.

Paul

You can't have the chute overlapping the wagon if you want to put a full load on it. With a six inch gap the bale will still come at least a foot and a half onto the wagon before it drops so it will not fall off the wagon unless you are in a very sharp turn.

(quoted from post at 15:11:08 06/16/19) NH 276 bale chute, bent, welded, rusty...but it works.
<img src="https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto26547.jpg">

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YES to the hay hook... I have three of them in my garage. The last time that we baled with a friend of ours a few years ago, he had a baler with a failed thrower. We just let the bales push up the thrower as a makeshift "chute" and pulled them onto the wagon. When our girls helped us, they were instructed to stand sideways at the front of the wagon with a wide stance and one hand on the "chute" for balance and safety, while they used the hook to pull the bales to themselves.

Looking at your picture, it would appear that the first section of chute, at the baler, has been removed from my old 276. All that mine has is the piece that you have angled up. We run it flat to drop the bales on the ground.

The 52" measurement from hitch to deck is shorter than both of my wagons, but I'm thinking that it would be better to modify my wagons to a dimension like this, than to put on a chute that's something like seven feet long...which is about what it would take for me at the moment.

I'm grateful for all of the replies!

Now, to just find time to do the work... But this is one task that I want to get to... because it's work to save work.

Note: The baler wagon hitch may have an adjustment. The combination of hitch location on the baler and tongue length combine to determine the position of the wagon deck.

(quoted from post at 04:25:20 06/17/19)
You can't have the chute overlapping the wagon if you want to put a full load on it. With a six inch gap the bale will still come at least a foot and a half onto the wagon before it drops so it will not fall off the wagon unless you are in a very sharp turn.

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I'm OK with leaving some space at the front of the wagon.

We have a very steep ramp into our hayloft. I have to limit our load sizes to ensure that our Ford 3000 and/or 2N can pull the wagons up into the loft.

About 80 to 90 bales is our limit. Our Ford 4000 can pull heavier wagons up that ramp, but that's usually on the baler.

That dovetails into another project that I have going. We put up scaffolding in the hayloft about three weeks ago, in order to get a 32 foot section of the unused mow conveyor in the peak of the hayloft down (that was an adventure, but it went according to plan).

That is going to be used to make a section of elevator that would possibly allow us to park the wagons outside and unload, which would alleviate the "driving up the ramp" problem.

We don't load completely to the front ether, guy loading the wagon needs a place to stand.
Sounds like you have a bank barn if you have ramps going up into the loft.
Dad built our bank barn soon after buying our farm, on the upper side the loft is slightly higher than a wagon bed, spooled me on how to unload into a hay loft.

(quoted from post at 08:52:38 06/18/19)
We don't load completely to the front ether, guy loading the wagon needs a place to stand.
Sounds like you have a bank barn if you have ramps going up into the loft.
Dad built our bank barn soon after buying our farm, on the upper side the loft is slightly higher than a wagon bed, spooled me on how to unload into a hay loft.

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I wish the bank barn was the case.

My father-in-law had one, when I was dating my wife. They bragged about putting in hay without elevators. That was before they told me that the barn had two dry floors and two ramps, both of which put the wagon deck about ten or twelve feet above the hay loft floor.

Probably 75% of the hay was put in by either dropping bales down or short throws across on the level. They only piled maybe six or seven tiers above the wagon deck.

Our barn, however has no such thing. It's simply built on flat ground with a very tall stable section, the ceiling is as high as nine feet in some locations.

So, to get up into the loft, you have to pull wagons up a very steep ramp.

But once up in the loft, the wagon tires are at floor level, and once about three tiers are done, every bale has to go up.

Last year, we peaked out at 15 tiers, and we were just to the eaves. There are probably ten more tiers to the peak.

At some point in the barn's history, they installed a mow conveyor through the peak at about 26feet above the floor. There used to be an elevator section to it outside; so you could pull the wagons up at ground level at the front end of the barn and load them onto a permanent elevator; which would take them up to the mow conveyor.

The elevator is gone. The mow conveyor remains.

I'm not a big fan of mow conveyors, my uncle had one, and the bales dropped from the peak would get all jumbled, broken, packed like concrete... and you are risking your life by piling in there with 45 pound missles dropping ever couple seconds.

My Uncle didn't care. He said, "We have all winter to dig the bales out."

I have a 276 with the orginal 2 chute setup, first one is 36 in and 2nd is 48 in. If you need any more measurements or pics Ill be more than happy to
help