Curved bales?

[BeeferMan]

Ditto Paul's list particular #1

See my post #7. If there isn't enough hay in the pickup for the feeders to push hay all the way into the chamber then one side - the knife side - gets more hay than the other side and the bales gets formed unevenly. That goes somewhat counter to your comment about breaking shear bolts when "too loaded up", but maybe other issues there.

Not familiar with the IH balers, but with the NH balers you can adjust the back panel of the feeder chamber closer to the feeder is you're doing a lot of light hay.

 

[Localmotion]

Banana Shaped Bales
1. Ground speed of baler too slow and/or windrow too small.
1. Solution. Increase ground speed, reduce baler rpm and.or make larger windrows.
1. Solution. Decrease baler speed.
2. Bale tension too loose.
2. Solution. increase bale tension.
3. Baling extremely light hay.
3. Solution. Travel in the direction that rake or windrower traveled to pickup hay in a head-first position.

Another solution if the windrow is narrow / light is to weave from side to side while travelling down the windrow, to ensure the crop feeds evenly across the pickup...

I've never had it happen with small bales, but with large square bales and especially roundbales, in a light crop or narrow windrow you can get too much crop feeding into one side of the chamber - the result is excactly as you describe being banana shaped or (with round bales) conical shaped bales. :thumbsup:

 

[Mistyridgefarm]

Every baler and crop is different but there were a lot of common issues already posted above. Your description has me wondering if your ground speed was too fast for the windrow or the PTO speed too low. You should be getting 12-18 flakes per bale. A flake of hay is the amount each charge of the plunger pushes into the chamber. If you push too big a flake, the knives have such a hard time cutting that it breaks the shear bolt. If you have the tension too tight and try to stuff a large charge, that will break the shear bolt. flakes should be 2-3 inches.

I would start by checking the twine tension using 9000 twine, back off the bale tension, set your feeder forks to middle setting, run at 540 PTO speed, and go extra slow. You might get more than 18 flakes but that's okay to start. Oh before you start, check the knives for sharpness and alignment.

Bale a couple light bales. Pull the twine off and check they are the same length. If they are twine tension is even. If not, correct that before looking elsewhere.

Increase bale tension a bit and try again, keep ground speed slow. When feeding the windrow, keep it it closest to the plunger side of the pickup. This keeps the hay feeding in consistent increments rather then feeder fork grabbing a big swath and stuffing it in.

If you start to see bananas, adjust the feeder fork to push more hay to the short side. Make small adjustments to feeder fork and bale tension until you get the right weight bale, with square ends. One thing about bale tension, most balers have two screws. Make sure they are applying equal force.

Adjust ground speed till you get the 15-18 flakes per bale and barring dog or wedge issues, it should come out straight. It can be frustrating until you get all the variables under control.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[flusher]

I'd break apart 5 or 6 small squares and hand feed them to see what's going on with your baler. IMHO it's easier to trouble shoot problems like this with the baler stationary than trying to do diagnosis while the baler is in motion. Once you get good bales this way, then try the suggestions made earlier in this thread.

Good luck.

 

[AGRIMAN]

I pretty much agree with all the advice already mentioned above. One or a combination of them should resolve the problem, but there has been times when I’ve tried everything and still couldn’t completely resolve the banana problem. I believe it’s mostly due to the type and condition of the grass/crop, which affects the feeding in usual ways. Here’s a step that I have used several times with good results when nothing else seem to completely solve the problem.

There “should” be bale wedges inside the bale chamber. These are wedge shaped metal pieces that are bolted inside the chamber and usually there are one per side ( I should also mention that, I have seen balers that didn’t have any so if you don’t see them, then someone may have removed them).

By adding in an extra wedge (or two if you can) to the long side of the bale you create a little more resistance on that side of the chamber which can help to straighten out the bale. Sometimes I have removed the wedge from the short side and added to the long.