My new toy! Shiny JD 328 Baler

[Tx Jim]

Found a nice rake this weekend... a Tonutti for steal of a price!

Tonnuti built some JD rakes such as the 704 & 705. I know as I bought a JD 704 brand new.They had poor engineering and tissue paper thin rectangular tubing. Proceed with extreme CAUTION.

[Willl]

Very nice.

New balers require a 'break in' ?

[bglz42]

Hope this is not one of those! Appears very heavy duty, comparable to the Befco rakes I've used. We'll see...

What part had rectangular tubing? This one is all heavy wall round tubing?

Just looked at a picture of 704/705... different kind of rake. Mine is 3pt...

[bglz42]

Willl, yes JD recommends 1/2 hour empty at idle speed, then 1/2 hour empty at PTO speed. With periodic checks and greasing during break-in.

[Tx Jim]

What part had rectangular tubing?
Just looked at a picture of 704/705... different kind of rake. Mine is 3pt...

704 has frame parts that are thin wall rectangular & square tubing. The tubing(parts keys #3 & 39) that broke several times under warranty on my 704 was on the very back of rake.

[bglz42]

Sorry to hear about that! I hope mine holds up better. No square tubing on my 3 pt model...And if it dies I only spent 5 bills on it!

[Mini Baler Guy]

Small Farm Innovations offers Japanese Built Compact Square balers that require 15 PTO HP. Their balers can bale up to 350, 40-45lb bales /hr with a tractor that has 25 pto HP. Their baler can bale 50-60 lb bales also. We sell our hay to women so we make 30 in bales that weigh 38-42lbs. They also have a 12 bale accumilation system they have manufactured in the USA. You can get the whole system for under 30K. The smaller square bales sell great too. Go see their web site @ Mini Hay Balers and Compact Hay Balers | Small Farm Innovators.

[bglz42]

MBG, those are very nice little balers. I looked at them before buying my 328. If I was HP limited, I would have considered one. But I have a bigger tractor and was able to get a new full size JD 328 for basically the same price at zero percent, with dealers all over the area.

I am considering one of your drum mowers though!

[Mini Baler Guy]

Their 6ft drum mower would be a nice combination on your tractor. And you can fly through the field with their mower.

[birddog0304]

bglz42. EZ trail bail basket works great. You sound like you do things a lot like me, mostly by yourself. If your selling in the field you can dump them at one spot and customers can load with just 2 people right there which they like. Or if storing you can put it up with an elevator and 2 people. Once even delivered a load about a half mile away. Don't be afraid of a used one, there's very few moving parts(pivot wheel and door hinges) and a grease gun will fix that. Down side is the binding in tight turns. Bales can get in a bind where they enter the bale basket bale shoot if you turn to sharp. Long swooping turns and shorter bales help this. Also about the most I can get on is about 80 bales and with a 85 hp tractor & 336 baler on a hillside that's a load. BTW if you've got a 5205 you'll want at least an 8ft mower. JD 265 is great. Anything less and you'll be kicking yourself.
My two cents