International 1pr and allis chalmers rotobaler

Dustyah

Member
Got my grandfathers 1pr sat for 20 yrs but I remember him using it, and my great uncles rotobaler to compliment my wd45, also sat for probably 30 yrs, now what to do with em, fix em, restore em, or flower bed art, both are complete but a lil rough, wadda think , thanks Dusty
 
Do whatever turns your crank. At least you saved em from the scrapper. However,it would be really cool to see them used/useable.To 'restore' would be just 'iceing on the cake'!
 
I would try to get them working again .
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That 1PR was a pretty good old picker. Sure beat the heck out of the Wood Brothers that it replaced here for us.
 
Would like to see one of those roto balers at work. Never were many around here even though we are in cattle country. Ranchers that used them usually left some of their grass land that wasn't too rough to bale for winter use. They would just leave the bales lie where they dropped and turn the cattle in to graze on them. I do remember watching a neighbor baling with one in the 1960's behind a JD 4020 and my first thought was "that has to be extremely hard on a clutch, stopping and starting every couple of minutes" but it turned out the 4020 was a power shift (which I later purchased from the neighbor and I still have and use regularly). We aren't in corn country, even though there is much more planted each year, it seems, so I have not actually ever seen a pull type picker in use. Thanks for the post.
 
I've got one I use every year. I like it better than the NI 323 I also have. IH shells a lot less corn. However the NI pulls through the fall mud better.
 
I have my dad?s AC Roto-Baler, still stored inside,
and it would take very little to make it field ready
again. Surprisingly simple machine, and they eat
hay at an amazing rate. Windrows need to be at
least double what you would use for a small square
baler. If you can restore and keep these two pieces
of equipment operational would be a good thing.
Many old tractors are kept, but not a lot of
equipment is preserved that can be hooked up to
these old tractors.
 
A neighbor had a Roto Baler that he pulled behind a stem wind spoke wheeled John Deere A. That was quite a feat. He'd have to pull the clutch back,take it out of gear,then push the clutch back ahead for every bale. Dad bought one and used it behind his Oliver 66 with live power. Not bad to bale with,but after just one winter of feeding them,he bought another square baler and got rid of that thing.
 
I have a good operators manual fot that picker that I was just getting ready to advertise here on YT if you would be interested in it. I don't know if yoy have a manual but even if you only use it as yhe yard art I think it would be nice to have the manual for it. Plan on putting up lots more IH and other brands manuals soon.
 

While you make up your mind clean them up good and coat them with an auto-body shop quality rust converter. It will pretty much stop the rust, they will look better, and comparatively a lot less work and money than a restore.
 
Thanks for the video. I've seen the bales but never saw the baler work before. Must take a long time to bale a field with having to stop for each bale to be ejected. Not something I would want.
 
It would be miserable in heavy hay like this. Still definitely worth keeping alive though. I?ve baled heavy meadow hay with making 5x6 round bales and it would take longer to wrap the bale than it would to make one and believe me it?s cool for awhile but after all night it starts to get old unless you have a tractor with a reverser or a powershift
 
While they have to stop to tie they can take in a large amount of hay and bale more tons per hour than most square balers built in their era.have baled thousands of bales with those balers years ago,also they are pretty much trouble free,beat fighting the knotters on older square balers.
 
That is one definite advantage of a round baler no knotters . I suppose the hay in the video would be quite a bit heavier than average for those days as well ?
 

The bales in that video aren't very tight, probably weight 60-70 lbs, dad had our root baler set to make 90-100 lb bales, they where tight enough to shed water and the cows couldn't eat them.
We square baled first cutting then rolled second cut and left it in field that would be used for winter pasture, later when cows were turned in and had eaten forage I go out with a axe and chop open enough of those little rolls to feed that day. Each roll equaled two squares so I cut open rolls according to the number of cows in that field, since they couldn't eat on the other bales they cleaned up the ones cut open leaving little waste, we did haul small rolls from fields that wouldn't be wintered and scattered them in winter pastures, never stacked them inside.
Rolled by bales with one of those root bales hooked to a WD Allis, the WD's snap over hand clutch or a D15 with power director were the perfect tractors for running those balers.

I will say that without any safety shielding those balers were very dangerous to be around when running, a couple of local guys where killed years ago by a root baler, same baler in the same field one year apart. Always shut the pto off before messing with the baler.
 
(quoted from post at 10:50:06 01/08/20)
The bales in that video aren't very tight, probably weight 60-70 lbs, dad had our root baler set to make 90-100 lb bales, they where tight enough to shed water and the cows couldn't eat them.

A bale so tight a cow couldn't eat the bale formed by a baler with ""only spring tension""" is amazing. My cows have no problem eating the core on a rd bale formed by baler with hydraulic tension.
 
Its not springs that make the bales tight its the brake on the rear bottom roller that has to come up while making the bale.The tighter the brake is adjusted the tighter the bale.We've baled them so tight is was had to get a hay hook in them.
 
With the right tractor on the roto baler you could bale around twice as much maybe more than a 14T john Deere square baler.( per my Father) My Dad baled a pile of those little rounds. A good friend of his Nory Munro had the 14T and he would get Dad to round bale when he was in a pinch and needed to get done in a hurry! Dad baled around 15000 of these a year for himself and did custom baling with it as well. Wore one out and bought another new one that was supposed to start another bale while tying and ejecting so you didn't have to stop. Dealer was at our place for about a week and never did get it to work right, so we used it like the old one. Dad refused to switch to square bales until around 1975 when he downsized. Don't get me wrong-My Dad grew up in the era of loose hay and buck rakes so I can imagine when he got the first round baler it was a pretty big deal. I personally hated them little round bales with a passion!
 
As far as the belts buying them made up and ready to go they are pretty pricey.I replaced some belts years ago on a Roto Baler got a length of belting I matched up from an industrial supply house and some belt lacing pretty easy to make up.Didn't cost much at all.
 
That is a McCormick 1 row pull type corn picker from 50's, possibly 60's, might have been started to be made in the 40's.
 
There was a 1P before the 1PR. It had a single chain elevator. We had one of those between the Wood Brothers and the 1PR now that I think about it.
 

We had a old case pull type picker when I was young, probably a P-1, it was a old picker in 63 when rains flooded the creek bottoms where we raised corn, dad had left the picker parked at the end of the field unhooked.
Last time I remember seeing that picker the 50 ft wide creek was 300 yeads wide and the top 2 ft of the elevator was all that was sticking out of the water.

Dad bought a new Ford 601 side mount picker in 64, still have it but it's a parts donator for the one I replaced it with.
 
I started driving a tractor at 8yrs old. Cranked my granddads CC Case, and started dads 37 A JD both at 12
 

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