Finished another project today!!! New Round bale mover

I bought a gravity wagon and running gear at a sale 8-10 years ago. The gravity box was a real nice 400 Bushel Parker one. The running gear was a 10 ton Electric gear. It was not heavy enough for the gravity box. So I bought a 14 ton Meyers wagon for the gravity box. The Electric 10 ton wagon just set in the weeds since then. I kept in in the back of my mind for some kind of use.

I got it out last week and cleaned it up. I had to rebuild the telescoping tongue as it was messed up. I replaced all the bearings and seals. Than fresh coat of paint and two new tires and the wagon was done.

While cleaning up the wagon I found the name plate. I never knew what the full company name was for Electric wagons. There were a lot of them around here years ago. The name plate read: Firestone Electric Wheel Company, Quincy, IL. Never new Firestone owned them. Looked on the Internet and it seems that Titan Tire now owns it. Just found that interesting.

The bale mover/rack is a full 10 ft. wide and 24 ft long. I had to lengthen the coupling pole to get the wheels where I wanted them. The main tubes are 4 x 8 x 1/4 walled square tubing. The cross tubes are 3 x 4 x 5/16 walled tubing. I placed a lot of gussets at angles to brace everything and to keep the tubes supported.

I have a factory built one and the tubes are breaking all of the time. They are lighter metal and it has fewer gussets.

So the final mover will hold 8 bales on the bottom and I will more than likely stack 3 more on top. We have the quick hitches for the chopper boxes and one of them will fit this wagon tongue. So it should work real nice for bring bales in.

I think it turned out fairly well.

nice , is that new steel in the rack? if so how much
would you have in it? been thinking about building
that exact rack.

It is all new steel. There is just under $2000 in steel. There is maybe $100 in cutting charges in that. I had the steel company cut the 10 ft. pieces and make the gussets. There are 28-6 x 6 x 1/4 square pieces sheared corner to corner to make 56 gussets. It takes about 20 lbs of .035 wire too. A good full day of welding/fitting too.

Some nice-looking welds.

Nice wagon but think I'd of had the ends of the cross pieces bent so they'd hold the bales on better

Just curious, how much difference in weight is there going to be between a 400 bushel gravity box, and 11 bales?
The rack looks GREAT!! Very professionally done.

Very nice work.

Dean

The running gear looks to be to lite?

It turned out great!

400 bushels of corn would be: 400 x 56 = 22400 lbs.

11 x 1500 = 16500 lbs

The wagon is a 10 ton/ 20,000 lbs. rated wagon.

So the bales would be under the rated capacity of the wagon. Plus I move many more corn stalk bales than hay bales. The corn stalk bales only weight 700-800 LBS. so that would not even be much of a load at all.

The radius of the bales fits down behind the angle iron on the end of each bale spot. The cross pieces are 3 ft apart. A normal 6 foot bale will set down behind the angle iron 8-10 inches. That should hold it much better than the cross pieces being angled up.

I will let you know after we use it for awhile.

I wanted to be able to slide the bales on the cross pieces. When loading this type of wagon you set the first bales in the middle. Then as you put the second bale on you push the center bale out to the side with the bale you are loading. On the slopes we have if you try to load the bales on the sides it will tip the wagon up.

You can also load large square bales on this too.

I had a factory bale mover that had the cross pieces bent up to hold the bales. It did not have any ends on the bars and it was only 8 1/2 feet wide. So the bales had to hang off the ends. That mover was a PIA to use and after just one year of use the cross pieces broke where they had been bent.

Nice Job JDseller, i used something similar but the bale deck was made from old power poles .
Hooking up and unhooking 4 times for every load got kinda old after 20 years so i settled for something easier.

Nice job. Looks like it should hold up for a long time. Jim

The original Electric Wheel Company actually made a few tractors at one time. I have some pics somewhere of one.

Good job.

Interesting that it used to be Firestone, and now owned by an offshoot of the Goodyear company, Titan. Didnt know that. I imagine only the actual wheel portion is still around?

There are many different ideas and designs on bale haulers, this looks a lot better than the telephone poles I saw lashed to a running gear at the auction last week.

Paul

Bison those bale movers are real nice. I tried one out and it worked great on the flat ground and the areas I had with good lanes. The trouble is over half of my hay ground is back field lanes that cross creeks/ditches multiple times. The bale movers drag at the crossings.

That is why I thought that a wagon with the wheels close to each end would go across the crossing better. We will know later this week as second crop alfalfa is getting mowed today.

Nice job. I just used my neighbors homemade one today, so here are some things that stick out.
-Are the bales going to drop down and rub on the tires? The one I use has a tube running front to back so the bale cant drop that low.
-Are you going to load/unload with a spear or pallet forks? The neighbors wagon has the cross bars spaced so wide you can barely get the pallet forks in to set the bale. YOu have to be lined up perfectly front to back. Also, his wagon is only 5 ft wide, so your forks have to be exactly the right height or you will hit the main runner tube when trying to go in to pick up a bale. Spacers between the cross bars and main runners would be nice on the narrow wagons. Not and issue on a wagon that is 10 ft wide.

The tires are just about under a cross tub so there should not be a rubbing issue. I did not weld the guide angles where I can't cut them off and move the running gear. I wondered if the bales will clear enough. I set some on and they had plenty of room.

As far as loading, it would be hard with forks. I have used spears for years. Usually a double spear.

We will know for sure next week. I have some hay we are going to bale.

Mine aren't as perty, but I used old guard rail posts, a school bus frame and several pole braces to make mine. Total cost was about $50 in welding rods. I might paint them sometime to make the look better.

(quoted from post at 23:01:37 07/21/13) Mine aren't as perty, but I used old guard rail posts, a school bus frame and several pole braces to make mine. Total cost was about $50 in welding rods. I might paint them sometime to make the look better.

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Don those look great to me. I just can't seem to find much in used Steel in the last ten years or so. I also wanted to make this one look good as I might make a few to sell. The local weld shop that built bale movers closed a few years ago when the owner retired. So with the youngest son looking for extra money I thought about seeing if there is any interest in making any of them.

JD- my rails went the whole length of the sides, and the width was kind of dictated by the length of most of the posts, most of which were about 6'6", so it was a tad narrowwer than what I wanted, but I now use to my advantage, beause the bales drop in the center some and help to lock smaller loads in. And, we can lay some plywood sheets on it and SWMBO uses them for yard sales or flat hauling some straw sqaures. Sort of ugly, but very flexible.....Yours are much pertier!