# Ugly Square Bales



## BTaylorzx (Jun 2, 2009)

I have a JD 348 square baler and my bales are never uniform. I have read the manual and tried every adjustment it recommends. I am relatively new to baling hay. This is my second summer. I am not sure if its my windrows, the way I'm driving, or the settings on the baler. Most of the time they come out looking like a "C" . I have adjusted the feeder fingers and the bale tensioners and I cant seem to find a combination that works has anyone experienced problems like this before? I could really use some advice from an experienced square baler. I'll try to upload some pictures shortly

Thanks


----------



## BTaylorzx (Jun 2, 2009)




----------



## BTaylorzx (Jun 2, 2009)

I'm starting to think my windrows might be too small. These bales are really light. less than 50lbs


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

If you search some of the previous posts within the last few days on here from Oliver550 I think...sorry, He is having the same problems. I would check your knives, the clearance of them, the way the rotary feeder pushes it in, also check the hay dogs, and restrictor plates. It's frustrating, and it will take a lot of trial and error. Big uniform windrows and a slow steady ground speed with a consistent RPM will help as well. Good Luck to you


----------



## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

I'm not familiar with the John Deere but if the bales are light and tension doesn't help maybe the plunger just isn't packing the hay. Like previously mentioned. Haydogs, haydog springs, chamber knife. Seems to me if the compression is tight for a tight bale and and they are still light the haydogs aren't holding the hay in the chamber when the next hay comes into the chamber. When the plunger backs off the bale loosens. Did you have to lower the bale compression for it to bale at all?


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

One other thing that may be of some use to you. the 348 is a high capacity baler for the most part. Make sure your rows are big and as uniform as you can get them. And your restrictor plates (L-shaped brackets inside the chamber) or your side tensioner have enough to them to hold the bale back a little bit to correctly form the bale. Also if you are in really light hay, shorten your bales a little bit in length as well.


----------



## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

We have been working on an old NH baler that was doing the same. As was mentioned previously, steady ground speed and RPM. Most balers have a specific plunger per minute rate, usually around 60 per minute but you should check the manual for yours. Also ours turned out to be ground speed, and plunger per minute along with spacing between knives. Knife spacing appears to have been the biggest factor. It should have been 1/32 between the blades. Because there was too big a gap, nothing had an impact on correcting the crooked bales or correcting one string being loose while the other was rally tight. Once we corrected the knife gap and slowed down to around 1 plunge per second the bales are square and uniform. I've attached the before image. Looks alot like yours.


----------



## ecofarmer (May 29, 2009)

I took my laptop down to the shop and showed the post to my mechanic and he says the knives are out of adjustment. It's not cutting the hay and when the plunger takes the next stoke it's folding over what was not cut and bunching up; the plunger side will be longer then the other side. He also thinks the sting might be too tight by looking at the last 3 pics. If he "plays" with a bail or two he'll diagnose it better.

I don't like to run square bails but the 2 guys I employ that run them always want to run them between 7 to 9 plunger stokes per a bail. There's always a lot of talk of speed, rpm, and gear when they start a field. I always end up pulling a few bails at the beginning apart to counting the stoke per bail.


----------



## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

It looks to me as if your feeder is pushing too much hay to the far side/ or conversely ot enough hay is at the knives. 
Look up the range of strokes per minute the baler is designed for and use the highest count. 
With my NH 315 I run at 94 strokes per minute, which is more than 540 PTO RPM.

I got that from a baler maintenance school 30 years ago. The idea is at the time the knives are cutting hay is when the stroke is weakest. You want the most inertia to get a good clean cut.

It is not hard to make a good bale with a small windrow, though you may have to be in road gear to do it.

Learn to count strokes per bale as you roll. I have been doing that for 60 years now and it is second nature. You want to have each flake no longer than 4". Reason is with large flakes the bale length will be irregular. I put up a 34 inch bale. I go down a gear when it is 11 strokes per bale and go up a gear at 18 strokes per bale. 
I also watch the bale come off the bale chute. You want to determine the number of stroke, before or after the tie when the ball falls off the chute. When yo know that you will have uniform length.


----------



## bunchgrass1 (Jul 4, 2009)

Hi All,

I have had the banana bale issue off and on over the years and did all the increasing ground speed, baler speed, windrow size etc w/ mixed results - probably because it was a different problem each time. The worst is when rebaling or cleaning up a field. I've had bales so bent they were almost circular,

That said, I do like the knife explanation - specifically adjustment. I overlooked that aspect because I figured my knife was pretty sharp based on what the cut end of my bales looked like - clean cuts. It does make sense that hay being crammed in to the bale chamber and being chopped by a few blows from the knife could be the problem. I have a 347 JD and it's almost too easy to over feed it - auger gets jammed up due to hay not getting into bale chamber - forks are working there butt off but to no avail.

So my question to mulberrygrovefamilyfarm - how did you fix the the gap problem? Does NH have some shimming you can do?

BTW - If many of the folks who buy and feed hay and complain about the price, also had to spend a few days making it (include all costs), they would gladly pay $200/T.


----------



## Old New Farmer (Jul 4, 2009)

Hi there, I have found over time that length and density issues are related to the tensioners and the set screws for the length. Rough ground, thin hay proper speed , and running your PTO speed at your suggested speed affects the size and density.
I also found that if your feed fingers are out of proper timing, it leads to a lot of mis-shaped bales. This is due to the un-even packing of the hay in the chambers from the plunger. The older new hollands have adjustments for side to side and for up and down for proper running.Sharp cutters and proper adjustments to the plunger do wonders but you need the proper timing from the feeding fingers to equal out the hay for the plunger in packing your hay. Make sure on some of the older models, that the wooden slides are solid and not broken. Easy fix but they can really throw off the plunger from or to close to the cutter.
On a personal note I would keep my old 68's over any of the JD.. Ha! Ha! I only pull the with the Green Machines David


----------



## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Thought of something else. 
If your baler has wedges in the bale chamber, you might add another wedge on the long side.


----------



## BTaylorzx (Jun 2, 2009)

We baled this past weekend. I doubled the size of my windrows and just about every bale came out perfect.(or close enough for me) I wasn't feeding the baler enough grass. I'm glad it turned out to be something simple.


----------



## Lazy J (Jul 18, 2008)

BTaylorzx said:


> We baled this past weekend. I doubled the size of my windrows and just about every bale came out perfect.(or close enough for me) I wasn't feeding the baler enough grass. I'm glad it turned out to be something simple.


This is a big problem with making small square bales, especially with new, inexperienced hay makers.

I run a NH 273 and after first cutting we double the windrows from a NH 499 haybine. This makes a windrow that keeps the baler full and helps with the consistency of the bales.

Glad you got the 'problem' fixed.

Jim


----------



## kenny chaos (Jan 5, 2009)

When doing small rows, often it helps to adjust the baler on the row so it's picking up the hay way on the inside, maybe way on the outside, in the middle, or maybe you need to wander back and forth.
With my current baler, small rows need to be baled with the baler as far into the row as possible.
Good luck-
Ken


----------



## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm (Feb 11, 2009)

bunchgrass1 said:


> So my question to mulberrygrovefamilyfarm - how did you fix the the gap problem? Does NH have some shimming you can do?
> 
> BTW - If many of the folks who buy and feed hay and complain about the price, also had to spend a few days making it (include all costs), they would gladly pay $200/T.


Truth be told we used washers. Since it wasn't a strait line adjustment, each bolt has a different number of washers on the inside moving the knife over. Generally there are adjustment screws on the outside of the chute to pull or push the chute which closes or opens the gap between the knives top and bottom, front to back. This one was so far out that we couldn't adjust the chute enough. If you look into the baler when it's empty you would probably be concerned with what you saw. Works good though...


----------



## geiselbreth (Feb 21, 2010)

338 here sounds like packers finger not adjusted correctly also use a bale skiss work great for me


----------



## Bret4207 (Mar 29, 2011)

FWIW, I'm still using an ancient NH68. After putting up with misshapen bales for years I'm finally figuring this thing out. In my case it was the feed tines. They were simply worn down, but never having seen newer ones I didn't know and with the price for brand new I wasn't likely to ever see any of them! I broke one last year and found a parts machine locally. Took all the tines out and repalced all mine. The difference is incredible. I'm also finding some other worn parts that aren't a big deal but need replacing.

The guy I got the parts machine from had a book for a much newer NH baler, a 316 I think. The diagrams and pictures were far better than those in either of my 68 manuals. I was able to adjust my twine disc properly thanks to that book. I intend to borrow it and make copies. Just FYI.


----------



## showard8908 (Sep 2, 2011)

I run 2 14t jd's and a close friend of mine runs a 347 jd in a light windrow or clean up situation we both have problems. He kicks out random short bales and i kick out bales with the left side loose due to the hay not reaching the far side of the chamber at low volumes. I curently have another thread open adressing these same issues and havent had any hits yet. We have both learned that on any jd bailer you run it right on the verge of shearing the flywheel pin and that will get you some of the nicest most consistant bales you ever seen. My problem is you can't always keep that baler jambed pack full and when you dont your almost wasting your time you will be lucky to get those bales put up in the barn before they fall apart. I double windrows alot to keep it feed but there is times when the outside windrows are still a little thiner than i like to run but if i combine it again it will be to big and even running a wide open 1st gear i will have some hay roll over both sides and leave to really small wind rows and im in a worst possition than i was before. Also in clean up. As for advice to the thread starter, run it as hard as you can just when you tthink your going to shear a pin or bounce the guys off the wagon thats where you run a jd baler. As for me if someone could throw me some pointers that would be great, i have adj everything listed in the manual to a t and then tweaked a little from there for my specific needs and i have the feeder fingers set on the highest hole which throws them the deepest into the chamber and i am still getting short loose left side bales that are average on the right?


----------

