[AT] Hay making

Sat Sep 5 14:45:10 PDT 2020

It was an interesting growing season here.  First too wet – then too dry – then just right and now drying out again.  Farmer I board steer and heifers for just took his fourth cutting from about 30 acres of alfalfa next to me.  It was much better than the second and third cuttings..  He got 8 to 10 truckloads from it, I was outside at the time but not paying close attention to it.  Started cutting about 8:30 AM, was  merged late morning and done chopping by  about 3 PM.  Its fun watching the dance of the chopper and the trucks, but might be a lot of tension as the two drivers try to keep all the haylage flying into the truck.

You can make hay with a short period of sunshine this way, not a lot of sunshine periods long enough to bale dry hay anymore.  Especially with the late Summer and Fall dews here.

Carl

Manlius, NY

From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com> On Behalf Of Spencer Yost
Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2020 4:10 PM
To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Subject: Re: [AT] Hay making

One of the few advantages of living in the hot, humid, rainy south is that three cuttings - tho not guaranteed  - are common enough.  Two cuttings always.  

Those course tooth sections I believe are Herschel Tigershark:

https://www.herschelparts.com/aspx/prodDetail.aspx?id=17567

They were on there when I bought the machine and are popular around here as they are very hard to damage and are very sharp.  I have a  stash of finely serrated knives so whenever I replace one I use those.

As for rivets versus bolts:   Sometimes I rivet a new section and sometimes I use bolts. Depends on the circumstance. Like this circumstance I would have used rivets so I would not have to replace a stock knife clip.  But the knife guard had gone missing. So while I was at the store buying the knife guard i went ahead and spent a few extra bucks on a high-rise clip and I used bolts.

My rivet setter/punch is getting worn out in the threads from overuse. I’m sure it will last the rest of my lifetime but will probably be nearly useless for whoever buys it from the estate sale my kids have when I am gone :-)

Spencer

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 5, 2020, at 3:36 PM, Mattias Kessén <davidbrown950 at gmail.com <mailto:davidbrown950 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Sharp looking knives. Since I've got both a lot of knives and rivets with my cutter I use rivets, that and the fact that people f my age don't know how I use rivets. 

Third cutting, you're blessed. We only got the firsť. Happily enough the first was one of a kind we've got hay and silage for two years though we've already been feeding the sheep in the pastures with silage for weeks... Yet another year of drought.

Den lör 5 sep. 2020 21:02Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com <mailto:spencer at rdfarms.com> > skrev:

Third cutting is coming in. Looking pretty decent. Right towards the end of the cutting the mower started leaving a small stripe of uncut grass behind it.   I was close enough to being done  I said screw it and kept cutting. Upon inspection a knife guard was missing. I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken one of these off but it’s impossible to take these off without also taking the knives off. However the knives were fine though one rivet was sheared. So my guess is it shattered somehow and then the bolts loosened.

Considering I sort of knew where it might be and knife guards  are 15 to 20 bucks locally I decided to waste 20 minutes with a metal detector and see if I can find it. I never could find it but I’m pretty sure I found what shattered it. I cut the handles clean off one of my wife’s pruning shears :-) Apparently it dropped out of her pocket or the Gator sometime recently. Cut those metal handles off cleanly. I can’t believe there’s no knife damage.

Anyways once again I had to replace some rivets and I used bolts. Needed a new high-rise clip to clear the bolts and put that on. Since he asked about using bolts and wondered about clip clearance, I’ve decided to include pictures for John Hall. This is a picture of the repair and then a picture of a normal section with original equipment on it.

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