Any of you work on Baler knotters or go to school for it?

JOCCO · Mar 22, 2019

Guess the title says it all but wondering if you would share your stories. Did you get any formal training or just hard knocks. (school of hard knocks for me) I am currently working on some and have had some in the past that about got me committed to an asylum!!! Things don't look good at the moment lots wrong. Hopefully I can turn it around. Yes lots of books and manuals.

Brendon Warren · Mar 22, 2019

I fix my own. I've learned a lot from my uncle. Lots of trial and error. And a good technical manual is a must. I currently have three 327 John Deere. I've only ever worked on the JDs.

4520BW · Mar 22, 2019

When I worked at the Deere dealer I learned a lot and some I just learned on my own. Any one ever mess with wire? There are 4 wire balers on a sale tomorrow and I may be interested in one.

showcrop · Mar 22, 2019

I used to have a JD 336 and learned by doing, although the go to equipment guy in the area helped me a lot when he told me "it's the tucker fingers". He told me that from his experience 75% of the problems were caused by the tucker fingers, and if it wasn't them it was the twine wipers. The nice thing about the knotters on my MF is that it has neither tucker fingers nor twine wipers, so the knotters themselves don't need work. I need only to adjust the needles and twine discs now and then.

DeltaRed · Mar 22, 2019

I fix my own.I even fixed one in a dealers shop once. I had a series of NewHolland balers.I got very 'intiment' with them,especially the knotters.After closely reading(several times) and following the manuals,it 'clicked'.Once I figured it out,it really wasn't that difficult.During the 'NewHolland years',I got a large amount of 'on the job training'.

DeltaRed · Mar 22, 2019

I do wire. IH. IH uses a different twister than the other guys.Never messed with the others.Biggest issue is the wire must be fully sheared,the anvil must not be grooved.

Tx Jim · Mar 22, 2019

(quoted from post at 09:33:30 03/22/19) When I worked at the Deere dealer I learned a lot and some I just learned on my own. Any one ever mess with wire? There are 4 wire balers on a sale tomorrow and I may be interested in one.

Wire balers is about all I've worked on. I recieved on hands training at dealership. Only repaired very few twine balers.

Super H Mike · Mar 22, 2019

I have learned the hard way. I had a JD 14T that I never did get to work correctly, but I learned a bunch from it. I have had 3 New Hollands now and can pretty much fix or figure out anything that goes wrong on them. My Dad had a IH 45 when I was a kid that was always giving trouble, finally traded that on a NH 273 Hayliner which was always reliable.

4520BW · Mar 22, 2019

guess I should say they are Deere 348s.

MJ in the UK · Mar 22, 2019

In my teens I worked in the stores of an agricultral dealership and the expert on IH B45 baler knotters was the blacksmith/fitter. The problem was Bill could not drive so I had to drive him to jobs in the field so I learnt a lot about B45 knotters sitting on the twine can watching him. MJ

Adirondack case guy · Mar 22, 2019

I grew up in a Case dealership. My dad won many awards from Case for the numbers of balers that he sold. He had grown up with Case balers before they had knotters. The first Case balers had Pope knotters and had some issues that were solved when Case bought the wrights.
I nearly missed my high-school graduation because of a baler that was miss tying. It turned out that a bale of twine had gotten wet and wasn't feeding from the spool easily. It took a while to find that problem. This was back before plastic twine.Loren

tim s · Mar 22, 2019

When I worked at the Dealership back in 1974 we sold a lot of 336 balers,,and there were a lot of old 24T's around to,,I was the baler guy,,and it took a while for me to get good at it,,one time Deere put on a baler clinic at a neighboring dealership that I attended,, they had a slow motion film of a knotter working with different "Mis-adjustments" I learned a lot from watching that.The knotter is an amazing piece of equipment,,an old design that has had very few basic changes since it was first thought up,, the history and story of it's beginning is interesting. We still square bale hay here with a 4440 pulling a 348 baler,,last summer I was timing the amount of bales it was putting out,,8 bales a minute and the knotter was clicking up a tune...

tim s · Mar 22, 2019

On the wire balers some of the main problems were caused by the wire wearing grooves into places,,a bit of a groove will cause the wire to "Drag" making it want to wrap the twister hook,,a good idea is to put about a cup full of #30 oil into each roll of wire, this helps lube things up..

JOCCO · Mar 22, 2019

I too sure would like that film. The 348 is a good baler!

JOCCO · Mar 22, 2019

Pretty much same here 45 was a problem child NH273 was pretty good.

JOCCO · Mar 22, 2019

Wire was never big around me I have seen them but not done much on them.

37chief · Mar 22, 2019

In the early 60's Dad used a neighbors New Holland wire tie bailer. It amazed me to see it tie the wire. The rolls were very heavy as I remember. It did give some problems, but not many. Does anyone use wire anymore? Stan

tim s · Mar 22, 2019

Not many wire balers around here now,, we ran a 346W back in the 80's,,the price of wire went up and the better plastic took over,, the wire was a problem to get rid of back when we were feeding it,,but we had plenty of gate ties....

Old Scovy · Mar 22, 2019

If you ever had a 116 W JD you would learn a lot of things fast. Hardly ever had any trouble but when you did it was not fun. A hard hay press to work on. In up State NY cars rust very bad from the salt on the road. I had a 55 Mercury that was rusted ,I went to town to get a couple rolls of wire for the 116 JD hay press. I carried out a box of wire and opened the back door and dropped the box on the floor. It went right on down to the ground and took the exhaust pipe with it. . What a job that was. LOL

Tx Jim · Mar 22, 2019

(quoted from post at 13:08:18 03/22/19) If you ever had a 116 W JD you would learn a lot of things fast. Hardly ever had any trouble but when you did it was not fun. A hard hay press to work on. In up State NY cars rust very bad from the salt on the road. I had a 55 Mercury that was rusted ,I went to town to get a couple rolls of wire for the 116 JD hay press. I carried out a box of wire and opened the back door and dropped the box on the floor. It went right on down to the ground and took the exhaust pipe with it. . What a job that was. LOL

One of the 1st service calls I went on with an experienced baler technician was on a JD 116W. Those wire tying boxes are intriguing with unique needles with 2 wire rollers. I never understood why JD engineers desired to need wrap(tie) wire on both ends of the bale.

Old Scovy · Mar 22, 2019

I also lived in Lancaster County Pa.for 25 years and spent a lot of time with an old Amish man that sold and worked on Amish farm equipment I got real good a fixing and rebuilding binder knotters. It was fun o work on them. . The Old Scovy.

Tx Jim · Mar 22, 2019

(quoted from post at 12:05:18 03/22/19) Does anyone use wire anymore? Stan

Only type sq baler I've owned since I started custom baling hay is wire tie. I own a JD 347 wire tie baler now. If I wasn't in the twilight of my baling career I would like to own a twine tie baler

pms · Mar 22, 2019

On the job experience for me.Like anything mechanical knowing how it works makes all the difference.I take the time after season is over to thoroughly clean,lube and repair if needed anything that needs attention on my balers before I store under cover for the winter.

Paul

Cause when the sun shines you gotta make hay!

Oliver 500 Wa · Mar 22, 2019

Back in the late 70s and early 80s I worked at the machine shop that made all the parts for Freeman balers. They had a few knotter demo/training units made up that you turned with a hand crank so you could see what all was going on. I watched those countless times and understood how it worked, but never figured out how someone came up with the idea. I always wondered how many different tries were made before they finally got a reliable design.

Wheat47 · Mar 22, 2019

First implement dealer I worked for was a Ford/New Holland dealer. Big shop....Shop foreman(Oscar) and me!!!
First thing he asked me was what do I know about balers. I replied, "Not a dam thing!!!"
He answered, "Great I don't have to un-train you!!!
I watched/heard him fix more balers over the phone than I ever saw!!! First baler call he sent me on he told me
"make this one adjustment, NOTHING ELSE!!!" I did as he said and that baler went to work and never looked back.
The old guy that owned the baler thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread!!! He didn't know how scared I was!!!
Later on I found a NH knotter service book. I kept that to this day. I even used that book to fix Deere and Ford balers.
The terminology and the adjustment specs were a bit different, but the same principals applied.

steve in ok · Mar 22, 2019

I worked for a Case / New Holland dealer in the early eighties. I went to a training class on balers but being in Oklahoma we mostly saw wire balers. The trainer told us 75% of the balers New Holland made were twine tie. He said the only wire balers were in Oklahoma and Texas mostly. Don't know if that's true or not just what he told us. We did have one customer that had a twine baler but he was better at keeping it going than we would have been.

SVcummins · Mar 22, 2019

Took a class in college about hay and forage equipment and used the John Deere FMO manual as the text book . before that though I went to the school of hard knocks my first baler was a wore out new Holland 283 and I learned how to make it tire buy trial and error

VicS · Mar 22, 2019

We have a 430W IHC. Bought it 4 yrs ago when couldn't get our twine baler to tie. Just bale 3000 or so. Would like to find another one. It never misses if you tie next roll in right and tight.

big jt · Mar 22, 2019

We went over knotter operation very and I mean very briefly in college (1989 ISU grad). I wound up learning most of what I know about knotters working on grain binders.

My basic knowledge before learning from experience was from the manuals. On binders and I think most older balers there was a pretty good trouble shooting section. The manual I used had pix of different types of missed knots and what would likely caused them.

jm2cw

jt

Mike(NEOhio) · Mar 22, 2019

Been using FIL's 273 about fifteen years. Had been sitting about ten before that, with a couple of bales in it (BIL left it like that). Learned the adjustments from the NH manual but a lot of other stuff from experience. I find something to fix almost every year.

Northvale PA · Mar 22, 2019

I have run JD 24T and 336 balers for 30 years. The manual explains things very well and I have made all adjustments. One trick is to make sure the wiper arm roller is rolling free and has no flat worn on it. I have seen about every type breakdown too. Hence always own 2 balers. Recently some twine was breaking right behind the knot. Manual says smooth out the wiper arm throat area. No more broken twine. Nice.

Andy Martin · Mar 22, 2019

My baler is a 348 wire tie. Wire is expensive but you can make a tight bale. As someone said most twister problems are from wire wearing a groove in something. Beside the needle roller, in the twister hook, in the twister shaft. New parts are not too bad, but if you grind out the groove you have to polish where you grind. Grind marks make great teeth to grab the wire.

JOCCO · Mar 23, 2019

Always like the Deere bailers.

Any of you work on Baler knotters or go to school for it?

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