Been burning the midnight oil getting first my JD350 rake shaped-up and then my NH68 baler tying bales and the past few nights, me and my youngest boy (he's only 16 yrs old, over 6 ft tall and wears a size 12 shoes) have been touching up the Massey Ferguson model 32 pitman, 7 ft sickle bar mower.
Last night we sharpened the ledger plates on the guards and replaced one guard. New guards are coming over the winter, so our effort for now is to get the hay equipment into the field and see what we've got, so our efforts are limited to polishing what we've got rather than a full bore restore at this time.
Tonight we greased everything, set the knife in place, adjusting the hold downs and a couple of guards with a big hammer. We also put an adjustable stabilizer bar on the right hand side of the mower as my fixed length one pushed the mower to far to the right and the lead is off. The new adjustable stabilizer bar let, us square the mower and see where we stood with regards to the bar lead - all good.
With few spare guards, sickle sections, matched set of new belts and a pitman on hand if we needed them, we fired up the MF50 diesel and headed off to the field.
First attempt at mowing, got a piece of old barbed wire in the mower. Got that cleared, no real damage I could see and moved on. Darkness was coming fast and the dew was on the ground, everything getting wetter, but we wanted to at least give the mower a run - plugs or not.
Started mowing in 2nd gear low range and that seemed to do OK, but got a few minor plugs - which I backed out of and then tried 3rd gear low range. That worked great. I was able to move fast enough that it seemed the grass didn't have time to pile up in front of the mower. I also tried 1st gear high range and that worked ok too, but for the wetness of the dew covered grass, and the visibility I had, 3rd low worked great. PTO rpms were at 540.
It's interesting that this pitman mower (and maybe belt drive mowers are the same) seems to want to speak to you if it is nearing a plug. It runs really quiet, but begins to chatter slightly if it is seeing a plug to begin and maybe if I'm overloading it. I'll be paying a lot of attention to this. Also, it will be interesting to see how fast I can mow or how fast I want/feel comfortable mowing when everything dries out.
Question - how fast do you typically mow with your sickle bar mower?
As far as content, this is the second cut, first was bush hogged on Memorial Day Weekend. There is a lot of grass from 12-18 inches high and much to my surprise, very thick in 75% of what I mowed. There is taller stuff and shorter/thinner too, but I think I'll get a few hundred bales off these old neglected fields. The hay is a mixture of orchard grass, fescue, timothy, clover, native grasses and of course weeds. It is our intent to start over with these fields in the near future.
One of the things I kept thinking about is the negative comments about sickle bar mowers. I'm 4th generation on this farm and my great grandfather never knew electricity on this place, never owned a tractor and know one remembers a horse drawn sickle mower that I know of. Hay was probably cut with a hand scythe (sp?) and what an advancement the sickle bar made on farms like this one back in the day.
I have mowed down these fields with a 5 ft bush hog and it seems like I'm taking a 4 or 4-1/2 ft cut. This MF32 is seeing pretty much a full 7 ft cut and at the rate I was mowing, I can see this particular 5 acre field will get cut fairly quickly.
Knock on wood - more mowing tomorrow and we'll see how the rake and baler perform.
Bill
Last night we sharpened the ledger plates on the guards and replaced one guard. New guards are coming over the winter, so our effort for now is to get the hay equipment into the field and see what we've got, so our efforts are limited to polishing what we've got rather than a full bore restore at this time.
Tonight we greased everything, set the knife in place, adjusting the hold downs and a couple of guards with a big hammer. We also put an adjustable stabilizer bar on the right hand side of the mower as my fixed length one pushed the mower to far to the right and the lead is off. The new adjustable stabilizer bar let, us square the mower and see where we stood with regards to the bar lead - all good.
With few spare guards, sickle sections, matched set of new belts and a pitman on hand if we needed them, we fired up the MF50 diesel and headed off to the field.
First attempt at mowing, got a piece of old barbed wire in the mower. Got that cleared, no real damage I could see and moved on. Darkness was coming fast and the dew was on the ground, everything getting wetter, but we wanted to at least give the mower a run - plugs or not.
Started mowing in 2nd gear low range and that seemed to do OK, but got a few minor plugs - which I backed out of and then tried 3rd gear low range. That worked great. I was able to move fast enough that it seemed the grass didn't have time to pile up in front of the mower. I also tried 1st gear high range and that worked ok too, but for the wetness of the dew covered grass, and the visibility I had, 3rd low worked great. PTO rpms were at 540.
It's interesting that this pitman mower (and maybe belt drive mowers are the same) seems to want to speak to you if it is nearing a plug. It runs really quiet, but begins to chatter slightly if it is seeing a plug to begin and maybe if I'm overloading it. I'll be paying a lot of attention to this. Also, it will be interesting to see how fast I can mow or how fast I want/feel comfortable mowing when everything dries out.
Question - how fast do you typically mow with your sickle bar mower?
As far as content, this is the second cut, first was bush hogged on Memorial Day Weekend. There is a lot of grass from 12-18 inches high and much to my surprise, very thick in 75% of what I mowed. There is taller stuff and shorter/thinner too, but I think I'll get a few hundred bales off these old neglected fields. The hay is a mixture of orchard grass, fescue, timothy, clover, native grasses and of course weeds. It is our intent to start over with these fields in the near future.
One of the things I kept thinking about is the negative comments about sickle bar mowers. I'm 4th generation on this farm and my great grandfather never knew electricity on this place, never owned a tractor and know one remembers a horse drawn sickle mower that I know of. Hay was probably cut with a hand scythe (sp?) and what an advancement the sickle bar made on farms like this one back in the day.
I have mowed down these fields with a 5 ft bush hog and it seems like I'm taking a 4 or 4-1/2 ft cut. This MF32 is seeing pretty much a full 7 ft cut and at the rate I was mowing, I can see this particular 5 acre field will get cut fairly quickly.
Knock on wood - more mowing tomorrow and we'll see how the rake and baler perform.
Bill