Bale Wrqpper Fits Skid Steer Loader

Bale Wrqpper Fits Skid Steer Loader CROP STORAGE Round Bale Silage 20-1-23 An Illinois farmer who wanted to wrap round bales but didn't have a tractor equipped with a 3-pt. hitch solved the problem by building a bale wrapper for his Bob-cat skid steer loader. Steve Niermann of Chester came up with the bale wrapper to protect his bales over the winter. It's mounted on his skid steer's quick tach loading arms. "It works good and cost only about $300 to build," says Niermann, who used the bale wrapper last summer to wrap over 200 bales. "Commercial 3-pt. bale wrappers sell for about $3,000 so I saved a lot of money. Also, I didn't have to buy a 3-pt. or another tractor. I use it to wrap both dry and high-moisture bales." The bale wrapper consists of a round, 3/ 8-in. thick steel plate fitted with a large spear and four small ones. The unit mounts on a steel frame made from 2-in. sq. steel tubing. A hydraulic motor mounted on the frame belt-drives a pulley on the back side of the steel plate. A commercial bale wrap arm, which Niermann bought for $75, ex-tends out to one side. It holds a roll of 30 in. wide plastic that slides forward or back on a rail. Niermann and his wife do the bale wrap-ping together. He spears the bale and raises it, while his wife ties the plastic onto a bale string. He then rotates the bale while his wife slides the roll of plastic back and forth to cover the bale. "It takes only about 30 seconds to wrap a bale," says Niermann. "The motor turns at 50 rpm's and would have rotated the bale too fast so I had to slow it down. I wanted to chain drive the bale wrapper but I couldn't find the right size sprockets to gear the motor down. I solved the problem by mounting a 4-in. dia. pulley on the motor and a 19-in. dia. one on the steel plate. I salvaged the pulleys and idler wheel off an old Massey Ferguson combine. My bales are about 40 in. long and weigh only 500 to 600 lbs. Big 2,000-lb. bales might cause the belts to slip, so chains would work better." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Steve Niermann, 141 Lochhead Dr., Chester, Ill. 62233 (ph 618 826-4697).

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