New Idea Cut/ditioner

[BooPie]

I have a 272 Cut/Ditioner and love it. It dries the hay much faster and you can get close to the ground with it. It also cuts all varieties of hay and is especially good in fields that have started to grow over as it handles smaller willows and alders very well. I leave the winrow shields wide open and this allows the hay to be spread out flat and also gives you quicker drying time. It is really good for hay that has been laid down by the wind. You will need more string than normal if you are round baling. I pull it with a David Brown 1200 and have no problem with power to run it. If it is too wet to cut it will start to ball up and you will see it, but it can cut hay when it is quite wet and still do a good job.

 

[hoosiergumby]

hi, i'm glad to hear that someone still has one of these machines. myself, i couldn't get enough of mowing a hay field with mine. now, have you tried fluffing the hay with it to dry it?? i would just speed up my ground speed and slow down the PTO speed and get the flails at the right speed to pick up the hay and just flip it to fluff it up. getting the right speed ratio is important to retain as much of the leaves as possible. i was always amazed at how different the fluffed hay would look and dry and bale, compared to the conventional way.
good luck in your farming future. thanks. keep on making that hay.

 

[lazermule]

I have one of these gems and it it a nice well built simple machine. I bought my small farm in 2000 and the farmer said O could have all of the equipment that was laying around and this Cut-ditioner was one off those pieces of equipment. It was a sunken into the ground in a partially grown over field/pasture. I pulled it out and brought it up to the shop and serviced it up. I have a friend that farmed quite a bit and he said how they worked real well and were way before their time. He took a look underneath and said the knives were either new or the machine had extremely low hours on it as they were square and sharp.

Over the years, i pretty much just used it as a mower for fields on my hunting land at my cabin. I puller it with my 1949 Oliver 77 and it handled it just fine.

Fast forward to today and I haven't used it in probably 10 years. I'm in the process of trying to get a small hay operation going here and this thing will be perfect for that. So, now I'm in the process of transporting it back to my farm 2 hours south of my hunting property where it has sat in the woods for the last decade. I pulled it out of the woods a couple of days ago and got it to an area where I could look at it and it still looked great! It's like a turtle, it has its own little shell that travels with it to protect it from the elements.

I lubed it up, hooked it to our 49 hp JD compact and took it out to cut a bit and it did an awesome job. I took it back to my cabin, pulled the tongue and PTO off so I can fork it up on my car trailer to haul it home next week.

It's first job when I get it home will be to cut about 5 acres of wheat that I plan on baling as wheat doesn't bring as much money as the straw and 5 acres isn't enough to bring a combine in for.

I don't have a rake yet, but it sounds like I may not need it...

I will be powering this with my new 2017 Massey 1736 which I think in the ground I have will do fine as it has about the same HP as the Oliver 77 but just has the comforts of the cab and A/C.

LM