Push/Pull Rake For One-Man Baling

Push/Pull Rake For One-Man Baling HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Rakes 44 Brock Young turned his V-rake on a trailing cart into a push rake that mounts ahead of his baler tractor When short on help he can rake and bale in a single pass When his wife is available to rake his quick-tach adapter plate lets her hook up behind another tractor and go “My wife has our little girl with her in the tractor but when she falls asleep my wife stops and takes her home ” says Young “Then I put the rake on front of my tractor and bale by myself ” Young got his idea after seeing a baler in FARM SHOW modified to allow a rake to be mounted between it and the tractor However his older baler requires him to stop and back up to eject the bale He needed a rake that could back up as well His solution was to mount the rake on the tractor loader When a bale is made he simply lifts the rake off the ground and backs up The design of the older 8-wheel V-rake on its two-wheel cart made the push/pull rake possible The square beam frame at the front of the rake serves for both the front and rear hitches “The front hitch is attached to the beam with four U-bolts ” explains Young “I replaced the U-bolts with four straight bolts and ran them through a 1/2-in steel plate on the back of the beam locking it in place ” The steel plate serves as the push plate for the rear hitch which is a 10-ft length of drill pipe Young slipped a 4-in pipe inside the 5-in pipe to double wall reinforce it and butt-welded it to the plate At the other end of the pipe Young fabricated a quick attach frame using 1/2-in steel to match the loader on his baler tractor On the front side of the frame he welded a length of 6-in channel iron with the channel facing out The loader end of the pipe is butt-welded inside the channel iron Steel plates 2 in by 6 in welded to the sides of the pipe and the channel iron reinforce the joint When not being used the front hitch pole and the rear hitch pole remain suspended off the ground when the other one is in use “I replaced the wheels on the rake cart with ‘tail’ wheels from a Bush Hog so they swivel when I turn ” explains Young “The original wheels would drag into the turns ” Extended hydraulic hoses run from the baler tractor the length of the rear hitch pole to operate the wings and lift Young says the hose extensions and a new set of tires and rims for the Bush Hog wheels were the main expense with the project as the other components were left over from other shop projects “Eliminating the tractor on the rake saves enough in fuel to more than cover the cost of the modification ” says Young “I’ve been using it for three years without a problem ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Brock Young 6438 Joes Lane Jennings La 70546 ph 337 329-4398

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