Need help! Tedders and sickle bars...

My husband and I have moved to a farm that is actually large enough to grow hay for our horses instead of having to buy elsewhere. So we started looking about, went to an auction and backyards and put together some old hay equipment. Husband's relatively handy with fixing and mending. And back in his younger days actually did some hay growing/cutting with his dad.

We bought a Deutz Farh tedder, 4 rotor and we've been told its all we need to tedder and rake but...I can't seem to find any information on them, maybe not made anymore? And of course husband isn't about to ASK anyone and look like he doesn't know what he's doing (no, he won't stop and ask directions for places either!) so that leaves it to me if I actually want to feed my horses this winter! It does have two PTO hook ups, and I know the newer tedders have dual speed PTO's, one for tedding and one for windrowing - but are there other adjustments assuming that's what ours does? We haven't experimented with it yet as it needed some welding and he's finishing that up.

The other question in on our sickle bar mower. It's an International, but our tractor is a Ford, didn't think it would make such a difference but it doesn't like to hook up properly. We replaced the blade and rock gaurds as the previous ones were extremely worn, but this one still doesn't want to cut the grass. It appears to be working correctly, though it makes a bit of racket, until you get into the grass then it pushes the grass over instead of cutting - any ideas?

Thanks for any information!!!

Janelle

I'm wondering now that you talk about a drawbar type set up if that's not something we should look into instead of hooking those two arms up?

J

For this cutting at least we have tall, thick timothy but I guess I'll hit a few more auctions and keep my eyes on the papers...

J

How fast were you driving with the sickle? We discussed this a few days ago, you might want to search down a ways for that. On my 960 Ford 5-speed, I mostly drive in 3rd to mow, once in a while 2nd, once in a while 4th. Too fast & it doesn't work, too slow & the hay piles up on the blade, making a mess. Too wet (dew) & it causes problems. Mowing with the wind can cause problems. The blade should be fairly level, possibly angled up a tiny bit (front edge slightly higher that rear edge). The far end of the sickle blade should be an inch or so ahead of the side closest to the tractor - NOT trailing behind you. Fine stemmed grass or very messy clover can be difficult to cut, but sounds like you have good stemmy hay. Sounds like you have new sharp parts. Did you time the blades, so the sickle sections stop moving dead center on a guard in each direction?

A manual is a good idea, IH is Case dealers now...

--->Paul