New Pickup Mounted Silage Bale Wrapper

New pickup mounted silage bale wrapper CROP STORAGE Round Bale Silage 14-6-1 "It lets me load, wrap, transport, and dump silage bales one-third faster than a trailer-mounted bale wrapper," says Bernard Clark, Barnesville, Ohio, who mounted a 4-year-old trailer-mounted round bale wrapper on a 1980 Chevrolet 4-WD 3/4-ton pickup with the help of his son Scott, brother Charles, and nephew Paul. The Clarks removed the pickup bed and bolted the bale wrapper directly to the pickup frame. They mounted a 3,000-1'' -high pressure hydraulic pump equipped with an electric clutch from an auto air conditioner on the pickup engine. To operate the bale wrapper, he flips a switch on the dash to engage the hydraulic pump, lowers the loading arms, lifts a bale onto the bale wrapper and wraps it, then dumps it, all from the cab. Controls are mounted between the bucket seats. "It works much faster than trailer-mounted units because my hydraulic pump is bigger. It raises the loading aims faster and the controls are right at my fingertips. This pickup-mounted unit is also much more stable on hillsides and with 4-WD can go almost anywhere," says Clark, who farms and custom wraps bales and is also an Underhaug bale wrapper dealer. "Most tractors have only 2,000 to 2,400 lbs. hydraulic pressure so you must run the tractor throttle fast to lift the bale, but I can lift and wrap bales with the pickup idling. I can wrap 20 bales per hour with it. I've already wrapped a total of 6,000 bales." Clark says he built the pickup-mounted silage bale wrapper because farmers often didn't have a tractor ready for him when he brought the trailer to their farm, and most of them preferred not to have someone else run their tractor anyway. "Now when I come to the farm the farmer doesn't have to be there at all. The 4-WD pickup lets me wrap bales in muddy fields where a tractor and trailer would have more trouble maneuvering. The pickup is easier to maneuver than a tractor and trailer and lets me turn shorter and back up with ease. Its wide frame holds the bale stable on hillsides unlike a trailer-mounted wrapper where one side can tip up." Clark lengthened the loading arms 6 in. to compensate for the height of the pickup frame and installed lights that shine on the loading arm at night. "We've wrapped bales until 2:30 in the morning," notes Clark, who also mounted a concave rear-view mirror on the side of the pickup so he could see better around the bale wrapper. By removing two pins from the loading arm and two pins at the rear of the wrapper, Clark can remove the bale wrapper after summer is over and replace it with a hydraulically-operated Dew Eze 2-bale bale mover. He spent $2,000 to modify the pickup and bale wrapper. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bernard Clark, 59761 Sandy Ridge Road, Barnesville, Ohio 43713).

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